Top military commanders from India and China will hold another round of talks on 12 October as both sides prepare to stay dug in at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh through the winter, which has already started setting in.

Sources in the defence and security establishment have ruled out any possibility of troop presence being thinned during the winter. All steps, they added, will be mutual and “taken after proper verification process”.

The 12 October meeting will be the last involving 14 Corps Commander Lt Gen. Harinder Singh, who will then take over as the Commandant of the Indian Military Academy after handing over the charge to Lt Gen. P.G.K. Menon on 14 October.

This will be the seventh commanders’ meeting aimed at resolving the current India-China standoff in Ladakh. Participants will include Lt Gen. Menon and Joint Secretary (East Asia), Ministry of External Affairs, Naveen Srivastava.

At the next meeting, sources said, India will stick to its stand that disengagement should happen at all friction points, and not just at the southern bank of Pangong Tso, as China is insisting on.

China has been peeved with India’s move on the intervening night of 29-30 August, when specialised units and regular soldiers outflanked the Chinese and occupied crucial heights along the southern bank of the Pangong Tso.