Indian minister on goodwill visit to China
Saturday, April 19, 2003
china.scmp.com
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in New Delhi
Indian Defence Minister George Fernandes will visit China next week on a goodwill mission to improve relations between the neighbouring Asian giants.
Mr Fernandes, who leaves India tomorrow, will meet his Chinese counterpart, Cao Gangchuan, and other leaders in Beijing during the week-long official trip, a Defence Ministry official said.
"The visit is expected to contribute to the building of greater trust and good will between the Asian neighbours," spokesman P. K. Bandopadhya said in New Delhi.
The trip would be the first by an Indian defence minister to China since 1992, the spokesman said.
Mr Fernandes, who will head a delegation of diplomats, officials from his ministry and Indian military brass, would also visit Chinese defence sites around Beijing and Shanghai, he said.
The delegation is likely to take up the thorny issue of China's military assistance to Pakistan, which has fought three wars with India since 1947, sources said.
"The issue is vital and will definitely figure in the discussions in Beijing," a highly placed Defence Ministry source said.
India accuses nuclear rival Pakistan of arming and training Islamic rebels in Kashmir. Pakistan denies the charge, saying it only extends moral and diplomatic support to what it calls the Kashmiris' struggle for self-rule.
China this month urged the two South Asian enemies to resume dialogue.
Mr Fernandes, the most outspoken official in the Indian administration, left Sino-Indian relations in tatters in 1998 by commenting that India perceived China as its No 1 enemy.
The two countries fought a brief but bitter border war in 1962, and have had an uneasy relationship of mutual mistrust ever since.
Tensions flared again in 1986 when Indian and Chinese forces clashed in Arunachal Pradesh's Sumdorong Chu valley.
It was only in the early 1990s that the neighbours started making efforts to improve ties through a flurry of high-level exchanges.
India argues that China still holds 40,000 square kilometres of its territory in Kashmir, while China lays claim to a wide swathe of territory in Arunachal Pradesh.
The dispute remains at the centre of a joint working group, which has met 13 times without any conclusive results.
This month, Indian Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha said the two neighbours had set aside their border dispute. |
