India and China would remove forward deployments in a “phased, coordinated and verified manner”, the Indian defence minister, Rajnath Singh, told parliament on Thursday. China’s defence ministry said in a statement on Wednesday that both sides had started a “synchronised and organised” disengagement.
The tense standoff high in the Karakoram mountains began in early May when Indian officials said Chinese soldiers crossed the frontier at three different points in Ladakh, erecting tents and guard posts and ignoring verbal warnings to leave. That triggered shouting matches, stone-throwing and fistfights, much of it replayed on television news channels and social media.
