India is optimistic about settling a decades-old border dispute with China, a top official said Sunday as the two sides held talks on the issue for a second day.
India's National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan and Dai Bingguo, China's executive vice foreign minister, met in the southern state of Kerala on the dispute, which led to a brief war in 1962.
"Both sides are optimistic about reaching a decision," Narayanan was quoted as saying by the Press Trust of India, adding that discussions in New Delhi on the first day were "very good". "The talks are moving in the right direction. The two countries are working to evolve a methodology for the settlement of the dispute," Narayanan said. "Our effort is to extricate talks from the logjam. I will be dishonest if I say that it will be settled in this round," he added.
Dai also reported progress.
"We are working together and making progress continuously," he told reporters. The two governments in June 2003 appointed special representatives to address the border issue. The last round of talks was held in China in September.
Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao said during a visit last year that resolving the border dispute was a top priority after Narayanan and Dai signed an agreement setting the "guiding principles" for a possible agreement.
A formal cease-fire line was never established after the war but the border has remained mostly peaceful. India says China occupies 38,000 square kilometres (15,200 square miles) of Indian Occupied Kashmir while Beijing claims that 90,000 square kilometres of the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh belongs to it. The visit by Dai, regarded as a Chinese trouble-shooter on nuclear issues, comes shortly after New Delhi and Washington reached a historic pact paving the way for the United States to provide civilian nuclear technology.
China has reacted cautiously to the deal, saying such nuclear co-operation must conform to the rules of the global non-proliferation regime.
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