By IANS,
Bangalore : Indian and Chinese foreign ministers will meet here later Tuesday to try and take forward the decision of the prime ministers of the two countries to build better understanding and trust at the political level, a senior official said.
External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna and his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi will “discuss all issues, including differences that persist between the two countries, in an atmosphere of mutual trust and on equal terms,” according to external affairs ministry spokesperson Vishnu Prakash.
Yang will be accompanied by Chinese ambassador Zhang Yang during the talks to be held after the ninth trilateral meeting between the two Asian neighbours and Russia earlier in the day.
Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao and joint secretary (East Asia, China, Japan affairs) Vinay Gokhale will assist Krishna in the talks.
The Krishna-Yang meeting comes three days after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao met on the margins of the Indo-ASEAN summit at Hua Hin in Thailand Oct 24, and decided to resolve all differences amicably.
“Over the years, the convergences (between India and China) have grown and divergences have narrowed. The talks are an attempt in that direction,” Prakash told reporters ahead of the Tuesday meeting.
“There are no relationships in the world where there are no differences. We have differences. But both sides have the maturity, the mechanism and the framework to address those differences. We are in the process of narrowing them,” he said.
The unresolved border dispute, the on-and-off Chinese intrusions into Indian territories, China’s objection to Singh’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh early this month and the upcoming visit of Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama to the border state in November are expected to figure prominently in the Krishna-Yang talks.
Prakash said as Singh and Wen agreed to build better understanding and trust at the political level, the foreign ministers’ talks would focus on robust relations and would not allow differences to be an impediment.