Gabriel Crossley and Devjyot Gahoshal

NEW DELHI/BEIJING – Negotiations between Indian and Chinese military leaders to settle a prolonged standoff at a Himalayan border dispute have ended. On Monday, both sides blamed the other for not making progress.

Since last year, thousands of Indian and Chinese soldiers have been trapped in an intense face-off at high altitude in India’s Ladakh area. This despite both militaries having held more than 12 rounds of negotiations to resolve the matter.

Commanders met on Sunday for the thirteenth time. Indian officials stressed that the incident was triggered by the “unilateral efforts of the Chinese side to change the status quo”, India’s defense ministry stated in a statement.

The ministry stated that while the Indian side offered constructive suggestions to resolve the remaining issues, but the Chinese side wasn’t willing and could not offer any forward-looking ideas. It also said that there was no resolution at the meeting.

Both sides reached an agreement in February after lengthy negotiations between the military commanders of both sides.

Long Shaohua said that the Indian side kept insisting upon unreasonable and unrealistic demands which made it more difficult to negotiate. According to WeChat’s notice, Long Shaohua is a spokesperson of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Western commander.

Long stated that he hopes India will not misjudge the situation and would cooperate with China in order to keep peace in the region.

The two sides increased their deployments after fighting in June 2020 when 20 Indian soldiers were killed while fighting in Ladakh’s Galwan Valley with iron rods, stones and other weapons.

China was also affected by the unspecified loss of life, the first time that both sides have suffered combat injuries on their border in 45-years.

However, troops are still present in Ladakh’s other areas. This is an area of arid snow country that lies along the border of nuclear-armed neighbors. It spans 3,500km.

These two nations, who fought a 1962 border war, share over-lapping rights to vast areas along the frontier.