India’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday that the disengagement of forces along the disputed border with China would be completed by September 12, Reuters reported today, September 9.

The withdrawal of the two Asian powers comes ahead of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Uzbekistan next week, which the Chinese president is expected to attend. Xi Jinping and Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi.

“Direct contact (of troops on the border) has ceased”, – said a source at the Ministry of Defense of India last Thursday.

Meanwhile, observers say, thousands of troops from both countries remain along the border, known as the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

India and China share an undemarcated 3,800 kilometer border that has been a source of tension for decades. In 1959, India announced that the Chinese side had seized part of the state of Arunachal Pradesh, and in 1962 an armed conflict broke out, as a result of which about 38,000 square kilometers in the regions of Ladakh and Aksai Chin came under Chinese control.

In May 2020, a confrontation broke out in the mountainous region of Ladakh, following which clashes took place and there were deaths on both sides. India and China brought heavy artillery, tanks and aircraft to the region. After a series of negotiations at the military and diplomatic levels, in February 2021 Beijing and New Delhi began a mutual troop withdrawal from the de facto border line.