India-China tensions: Trump offers to 'mediate' over Ladakh standoff

US President Donald Trump on May 27 said that he has informed both India and China that the US is "ready, willing and able" to mediate or "arbitrate" what he called a "raging border dispute" amid the continuing standoff between the military of the two neighbours at the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

We have informed both India and China that the United States is ready, willing and able to mediate or arbitrate their now raging border dispute. Thank you!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 27, 2020

Also Read | Chinese troops come inside Indian territory in eastern Ladakh

Several areas along the LAC in Ladakh and North Sikkim have witnessed major military build-up by both the Indian and Chinese armies recently, in a clear signal of escalating tension and hardening of respective positions by the two sides even two weeks after they were engaged in two separate face-offs.

India has said the Chinese military was hindering normal patrolling by its troops along the LAC in Ladakh and Sikkim and strongly refuted Beijing's contention that the escalating tension between the two armies was triggered by trespassing of Indian forces across the Chinese side.

Also Read | India, China military commanders meet along LAC amid escalating border tension

On May 26, Prime Minister Narendra Modi met the National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval and Chief of Defence Staff regarding the stand-off, and had met the foreign secretary separately.

"Any suggestion that Indian troops had undertaken activity across the LAC in the Western sector or the Sikkim sector is not accurate. Indian troops are fully familiar with the alignment of the Line of Actual Control in the India-China border areas and abide by it scrupulously," Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) Spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said at an online media briefing last week.

Trump previously offered to mediate between India and Pakistan, a proposal rejected by New Delhi which maintains that there is no role for any third party in bilateral issues.

(With inputs from PTI)