On Monday morning, the world had one less geopolitical hotspot to worry about, when following months of escalating verbal jawboning and explicit threats on both sides, India agreed with China to disengage at the contested territorial dispute face-off site in Doklam. India’s foreign ministry spokesman Raveesh Kumar tweeted on Monday that disengagement of border personnel at the “face-off site at Doklam” has been agreed to and is on-going, with China confirming that India had pulled its troops from the Chinese side of a disputed Himalayan border area on Monday afternoon, after a months-long stand-off which started in June.
The de-escalation started earlier on Monday when India’s foreign ministry said it had agreed with China to an “expeditious disengagement” of troops from the Doklam plateau, an area close to the borders of China, India and Bhutan, SCMP reports.
“In recent weeks, India and China have maintained diplomatic communication in respect of the incident at Doklam,” India’s Ministry of External Affairs said. “On this basis, expeditious disengagement of border personnel at the face-off site at Doklam has been agreed to and is ongoing.”