New Delhi - Indian and Chinese agreed to disengage at a disputed area along a remote western Himalayan border by Sept. 12, India's foreign ministry said on Friday, after more than two years of a standoff following a deadly clash.

The disengagement comes after several rounds of talks between senior military officials from New Delhi and Beijing to avoid an escalation in tension between the nuclear-armed Asian giants that went to war over their border in 1962.

The pull-out, also confirmed by China, comes ahead of a meeting in Uzbekistan next week that Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are expected to attend.

Indian and Chinese soldiers began withdrawing from the Gogra-Hot Springs area in Ladakh in the western Himalayas on Thursday, a process that would be complete by early next week, India's foreign ministry said.

All temporary structures in the area erected by both militaries will also be dismantled as part of the agreement, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Arindam Bagchi.

Following a deadly clash in June 2020 that killed at least 20 Indian and four Chinese troops, similar buffer arrangements have been implemented in other areas in Ladakh where soldiers were deployed in close proximity.

India and China share an un-demarcated 3,800 km (2,360 mile) frontier, where their troops previously adhered to long-standing protocols to avoid the use of any firearms along the de facto border known as the Line of Actual Control (LAC).
-Reuters