New Delhi: China is illegally occupying approximately 38,000 square km in Jammu and Kashmir, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee told the Rajya Sabha on Thursday.
The Communist nation also claims approximately 90,000 square km in Northeast India and about 2,000 square km elsewhere, Mukherjee said in a written reply to the House.
Pakistan had illegally ceded 5,180 square km of Indian territory in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) to China under the Sino-Pakistan Boundary Agreement of 1963.
Mukherjee’s statement comes a day after his statement that "some adjustments will take place... here and there" on the border disputes with China and Pakistan in Arunachal Pradesh and in Jammu and Kashmir.
The minister was responding to a question by Leader of Opposition L.K. Advani on Chinese Ambassador Sun Yuxi's reported statement that New Delhi and Beijing had been negotiating the border dispute.
“It is true that when you discuss the boundary issue, boundary is on the land and not in the sky, and it belongs to some part of the countries concerned. But whether it is acceptable or nor acceptable, that is the issue being discussed by the two special representatives (of India and China)… When you finally arrive at conclusions, some adjustments will take place here and there," Mukherjee said.
Mukherjee said he had no clue on what “prompted” the Chinese Ambassador to disclose the negotiation. “This is not normal practice. Surely, this matter has been taken up not only here, but at our mission level also,” he added.
In a an interview to CNN-IBN on November 13, Sun Yuxi had said that his country stakes claim on Arunachal Pradesh. “In our position the whole of what you call the state of Arunachal Pradesh is Chinese territory and Tawang (district) is only one place in it and we are claiming all of that-that's our position,” the Ambassador had said.
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Mukherjee said New Delhi had been holding discussions with Islamabad on the border issue though the Parliament had passed a resolution on Jammu and Kashmir that it was an integral part of India.
"If it becomes the condition that it (any state) has been declared as an integral part of the country, then it is not negotiable... Then there is no point in having discussions on Jammu and Kashmir because this House has passed a resolution declaring it as an integral part of India. We have also passed a similar resolution for Arunachal,” he said.
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