Ahead of Hu Jintao’s visit, India, China hold talks

New Delhi : The foreign ministers of India and China Thursday held talks here to deepen their strategic ties and to firm up the agenda for the forthcoming visit of President Hu Jintao to India for the BRICS summit March-end.

External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna held delegation-level talks with his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi. The two ministers reviewed the entire gamut of bilateral relations and discussed issues that will figure in bilateral talks between the Chinese president and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the margins of the BRICS summit.

This will be the last visit of Hu to India before China goes in for a generational leadership succession expected in this autumn. Hu last came to India in 2006.

“The strategic partnership needs to be strengthened,” Krishna said after the talks and stressed that bilateral relations were progressing in a positive direction.

India briefed the Chinese delegation on the preparations for the fourth BRICS summit of the five emerging economies – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – in New Delhi March 29.

“We explained various aspects of preparations for the BRICS summit and the Chinese foreign minister is fully convinced of the preparatory work that has gone on in India,” said Krishna.

As the foreign ministers of India and China held talks, Tibetan activists protested and raised anti-China slogans. India has given an undertaking to China that it will not allow its soil to be used for anti-China activities.

The police detained nearly a dozen Tibetan activists who shouted “No border talks without free Tibet,” a reference to India’s boundary dispute with China. India and China have held 15 rounds of talks to resolve the border dispute, but have not made much of a headway.

The talks took place soon after verbal sparring between India and China over Beijing’s renewed claims to Arunachal Pradesh, prompting a sharp reaction from New Delhi.