PEKING, May 22, Reuter: China said today it wanted to settle its border dispute with India peacefully and described foreign press reports of border clashes as “exaggerated”.
The New China news agency quoted Foreign Minister Wu Xueqian as saying during a stopover in Karachi yesterday that Peking wanted to resolve the border issue “through peaceful methods, negotiations and mutual accommodation”.
Asked about reports of recent skirmishes along the eastern sector of disputed Himalayan border, Wu said: “It seems that reports from foreign agencies have exaggerated the event along the Sino Indian border”.
Last week, a Finnish newspaper quoted witnesses Froasa as saying there had been clashes and that many wounded Chinese troops were being treated in Lhasa hospitals. China dismissed the report as “sheer fabrication”.
The New China news agency’s report repeated charges that India was massing troops along the border and conducting military exercises. It said Indian troops had repeatedly intruded into Chinese territory and violated Chinese airspace.
China and India fought a brief border war in 1962, and the border has remained tense ever since. Seven rounds of talk’s since1981 have failed to resolve the issue.
Wu stopped briefly in Karachi on his way to Kenya at start of a seven nation African tour.
Article extracted from this publication >> May 29, 1987
