17 August 2020 10:11 am
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi issued a new warning to China over deadly border tensions on Saturday, using his most important speech of the year to promise to build a stronger military.
With talks on easing a military build-up in their Himalayan border region at a stalemate, Modi told an Independence Day ceremony that India’s sovereignty was “supreme” and that relations with neighbours depended on security and trust.
Attendance at the historic Red Fort in New Delhi for the speech was cut by more than half to 4,000 people, all of whom sat two metres (six feet) apart because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Hindu nationalist prime minister mentioned confrontations with Pakistan and China on their disputed borders, but without naming either country.
“Anyone who has cast an eye on the country’s sovereignty, the country’s army has answered them in their own language,” he said. “India’s integrity is supreme for us. What we can do, what our soldiers can do -- everyone saw that in Ladakh,” referring to a border clash with Chinese troops in the Ladakh region of the Himalayas on June 15. Twenty Indian soldiers were killed in the clash.
Modi has insisted that no land was lost in the battle but military experts have used satellite images to counter that Chinese troops occupy frontier territory that India had claimed for decades.
NEW DELHI AFP
Aug15, 2020