WASHINGTON: The United States is ready to help resolve the dispute between India and China over the mountain border running through the western Himalayas, President Donald Trump said on Friday. Trump told reporters the situation was "very nasty," adding that the two countries were "going at it much more strongly than a lot of people even understand."

Both sides deployed additional forces along the frontier after a clash in June, during which 20 Indian soldiers were killed in hand-to-hand fighting. The defence ministers of India and China held talks in Moscow on Friday, the highest level face-to-face political contact since tensions flared along the disputed mountain border in May. In the meeting, Chinese defense minister Wei Fenghe told his Indian counterpart Rajnath Singh that New Delhi bears full responsibility for the current border tensions, according to China's state-backed Global Times newspaper.