Rajnath to halt in Tehran, meet Iranian counterpart
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New Delhi/Moscow: India's Defence Minister Rajnath Singh will make a stopover in Tehran and meet his Iranian counterpart, on his way back to India from Russia.
Rajnath Singh had gone to Moscow to participate in a joint meeting of Defence Ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), and Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries.
Just before leaving Moscow, he said: "Leaving Moscow for Tehran. I shall be meeting the Defence Minister of Iran, Brigadier General Amir Hatami."
In Moscow, the Defence Minister met his Chinese counterpart, General Wei Fenghe, and held discussions on the border dispute between the two countries in eastern Ladakh. Singh met Fenghe on September 4 in Moscow on the sidelines of the SCO meeting.
During the meeting, Rajnath Singh said that the Chinese troops had attempted to unilaterally alter the status quo in eastern Ladakh in violation of the bilateral agreements.
He also pointed out that the two sides should focus on the overall situation of the India-China relations and work together to de-escalate the situation as soon as possible, and maintain peace and tranquillity in the border areas
The two Ministers had frank and in-depth discussions about the developments in the India-China border areas as well as on the bilateral relations.
Both countries are engaged in a four-month-long stand-off on the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh. Despite dialogues at several levels, there has not been any breakthrough and the deadlock continues.
China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) troops had made fresh incursion attempts into India territories.
On June 15, as many as 20 Indian soldiers and an unknown number of Chinese troops were killed in a violent clash in the Galwan Valley.
The Chinese aggression began to increase along the LAC, more particularly in the Galwan Valley, from May 5. The Chinese transgressed in the areas of Kugrang Nala, Gogra and northern bank of Pangong Tso lake on May 17 and May 18.
