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Indian Minister for External Affairs S.M. Krishna will meet his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi later on Tuesday to hold talks, kicked off the Prime Ministers of both the nations, to the next level.
They will "discuss all issues, including differences that persist between the two countries, in an atmosphere of mutual trust and on equal terms," according to external affairs ministry spokesperson Vishnu Prakash.
Yang, along with Chinese ambassador Zhang Yang, will hold the talks once the ninth trilateral meeting of India, Russia and China concludes.
Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao and joint secretary (East Asia, China, Japan affairs) Vinay Gokhale will assist Krishna in the talks.
"Over the years, the convergences (between India and China) have grown and divergences have narrowed. The talks are an attempt in that direction," Prakash told reporters ahead of the Tuesday meeting.
"There are no relationships in the world where there are no differences. We have differences. But both sides have the maturity, the mechanism and the framework to address those differences. We are in the process of narrowing them," he said.
The focus will be issues related to border issues, on-and-off Chinese intrusions into Indian regions, the reason behind China’s objections to the visit of Manmohan Singh to Arunachal Pradesh as well as the forthcoming visit of Dalai Lama to the disputed state.
Prakash said as Singh and Wen agreed to build better understanding and trust at the political level, the foreign ministers' talks would focus on robust relations and would not allow differences to be an impediment.
