India, China may sign deal on border row

Wen is slated to hold talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during his four-day visit to India from April 9.

"India and China are expected to sign a 10 or 12 point agreement incorporating the political parameters and guiding principles of resolving their boundary dispute," the Hindustan Times said yesterday.

It said the two sides were keen not to disturb settled populations and take into account each other's security concerns.

The Asian giants appointed special envoys in 2003 to work on a solution to the decades-old dispute over the 3,500-km border. Another round of talks will be held in Beijing on March 30-31, ahead of Wen's visit.

Both countries, whose ties were frosty till the 1980s, have made little headway in secrecy-shrouded talks over their disputed border but this has not affected ties in other areas.

"If this is true and if this is indicative of what Wen's visit is all about then it is very positive for the Sino-Indian relationship," security analyst Uday Bhaskar told Reuters.

"This has been in the pipeline but the fact that we have arrived or the suggestion is that there is a consensus is very welcome both for bilateral relations and for the profile that both China and India are seeking in the years ahead," he said.

India disputes Chinese rule over Aksai Chin, 38,000 sq km of barren, icy and uninhabited land on the Tibetian plateau, which Beijing seized from the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir in the 1962 war.

China claims 90,000 square km of territory ruled by India in the eastern part of the border, mostly in Arunachal Pradesh.

The two countries are among the fastest growing economies in the world and their two-way trade soared to $13 billion in 2004 from $100 million a decade ago.