NEW DELHI -- Indian and Chinese forces have pulled back from the Gogra area, one of the friction points in their 15-month standoff in eastern Ladakh along the disputed Himalayan border, the Indian side said.
Military commanders held the 12th round of talks on July 31, during which "both sides agreed on disengagement in the area of Gogra," the Indian government said Friday evening. Troops in this area have been in "a face-off situation" since May 2020, India said in its statement.
The announcement marks the latest disengagement by both sides in eastern Ladakh since a clash in Galwan Valley left 20 Indian soldiers dead in June 2020, the first deadly battle between the nuclear-armed Asian giants in 45 years. In February, China acknowledged for the first time that four of its soldiers were also killed.
The fractious neighbors fought a war in 1962 over their 3,500-km de facto boundary called the Line of Actual Control, or LAC. They have been negotiating through diplomatic and military channels to ease the current tensions in eastern Ladakh.
Under the latest agreement, "both sides have ceased forward deployments in [the Gogra] area in a phased, coordinated and verified manner," the Indian statement said, adding that the disengagement occurred Wednesday and Thursday.
The Indian and Chinese troops are now in their respective permanent bases. All temporary structures and other allied infrastructure created in the area by both sides have been mutually verified as dismantled.
"This agreement ensures that the LAC in this area will be strictly observed and respected by both sides, and that there is no unilateral change in status quo," the statement said. "With this, one more sensitive area of face-off has been resolved."
Both sides expressed a commitment to continue the talks and resolve the remaining issues, it added.
No immediate announcement was made by the Chinese side.
In February, both forces disengaged from the Pangong Tso lake sector in the Himalayan region.
India alleges that China began a large buildup of troops and armaments in border areas adjacent to eastern Ladakh during spring 2020 and made several attempts to transgress the LAC at various points. Beijing has accused India of provocative moves.
"One sector at a time is the approach the two sides are following. Earlier it was the Pangong Tso disengagement, and now it is Gogra," Harsh V. Pant, head of strategic studies at the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation, told Nikkei Asia when asked to comment on the latest disengagement process.
"Given the nature of the challenge and the border dispute, and given the tensions between the two sides bilaterally, this is the only way, perhaps, they can move forward," Pant said.
There will be no "packaged deal" where everything is resolved at once, he said
"At the end of the day, fundamental differences remain between the two sides," Pant added.
N.C. Bipindra, a defense and strategic affairs expert who is editor of news portal Defence.Capital, said the latest agreement is a welcome step for peace in South Asia and, in particular, the volatile Line of Actual Control.
"It is also commendable that this disengagement settlement has been achieved during summer months when the vagaries of nature do not pose much trouble to the soldiers on either side to stay put," he told Nikkei.
Bipindra noted the February withdrawal from the north and south banks of Pangong Tso, a boomerang-shaped lake in eastern Ladakh -- two-thirds of which is controlled by China and the rest by India.
"That was the low-hanging fruit," he said.