By IANS
New Delhi : India and China are in the second stage of exploring the framework of a final package settlement covering all aspects of the India-China boundary dispute, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee told parliament Thursday.
This will be followed by "the last stage which will involve actual delineation and demarcation of the boundary on map and ground by the civil, military and survey officials from the two sides", the minister said in reply to a question in Rajya Sabha.
The three-stage process began with the signing of an agreement on political parameters and guiding principles for the settlement of the India-China Boundary Question on April 11, 2005, during the visit of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao to India, the minister said.
Special representatives of both countries will hold the 11th round of talks to resolve the border row in Beijing later this year to arrive at a framework for a final package settlement.
China illegally claims approximately 90,000 sq km of Indian territory in Arunachal Pradesh and 38,000 km in Jammu and Kashmir, the minister had told parliament Wednesday.
China's occupation of approximately 38,000 sq km in Jammu and Kashmir is besides the 5,180 sq km illegally ceded by Pakistan in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) under the so-called Sino-Pakistan Boundary Agreement of 1963, the minister said.
In response to another question, Mukherjee said the Chinese government, in a case against Huseyin Celil, an ethnic Uyghur, has stated that Celil was involved in recruiting several people for the East Turkistan Liberation Organisation and sending them to terrorist training camps in the Pamir plateau in Pakistan.
The minister said the Indian government has been consistently reminding Pakistan of its commitment of not allowing any territory under its control to be used to support terrorism.