India-China Boundary talks on December 22

New Delhi, Dec 20: India and China will hold the 20th Special Representative(SR) talks on the boundary issue on December 22, their first engagement under the mechanism since the 73-day face -off at Doklam in the Sikkim Sector earlier this year.

China’s Special representative State Councillor Yang Jiechi is coming here for the meeting at which India will be represented by National Security Adviser Ajit Doval.
Though the Doklam issue was discussed between External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and her Chinese counterpart Minister Wang Yi earlier this month, the matter being on the agenda again at the SR talks cannot be ruled out.
“The SR meeting is not only a high-level channel for the border issue discussion but also the platform for strategic communication. This also allows the two sides to exchange views on the international and regional issues of major concern,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said in Beijing on Wednesday.
She also said that both the countries had maintained a good momentum 
In their relations this year, but the Doklam incident posed a ‘’major test’’ for the two countries. 
‘’We should learn lessons from this incident to avoid any further conflict of this kind in the future,” Hua said.
India and China had reached an agreement on guiding principles and setting political parameters for a settlement of the boundary dispute in 2005. The two countries are now negotiating the second phase of working out a settlement framework, and the third and last phase would be drawing a border line based on the framework agreement. UNI