NEW DELHI • Bhutan yesterday welcomed moves by India and China to withdraw troops from a strategic area which it claims as its territory, ending a months-long military stand-off between its giant neighbours..
NEW DELHI • Bhutan yesterday welcomed moves by India and China to withdraw troops from a strategic area which it claims as its territory, ending a months-long military stand-off between its giant neighbours.
The tiny Himalayan country of fewer than a million people had been caught in the middle of what some analysts called the worst crisis in India-China relations in decades.
The row centred on the Doklam plateau, an area high in the Himalayas that is claimed by both China and Bhutan.
India itself does not claim the territory but has a military presence in Bhutan, a close ally.
It stepped in to prevent Chinese border guards from building a road there, prompting Beijing to accuse it of trespassing on Chinese soil.
“Bhutan welcomes the disengagement by the two sides at the face-off site in the Doklam area, ” its foreign ministry said.
“We hope this contributes to the maintenance of peace and tranquillity and status quo along the borders of Bhutan, China and India, in keeping with existing agreements between the respective countries.”
The Doklam plateau is strategically significant as it gives China access to the so-called “chicken’s neck” – a thin strip of land connecting India’s north-eastern states with the rest of the country.
For weeks, worries had been growing of a major conflict between the two nations until both sides agreed on Monday to give some ground in order to end the stand-off, although neither country has offered explicit details of the terms of disengagement.
