Taking a jibe at China over its claims on the state of Arunachal Pradesh, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said that changing names won’t have any effect and the northeastern state was, is and will always be India’s part.
While addressing a press conference in Gujarat, Jaishankar said, “If today I change the name of your house, will it become mine? Arunachal Pradesh was, is and will always be a state of India. Changing names does not have an effect.”
“Our army is deployed at the Line of Actual Control…,” EAM added.
Recently, China again came up with its claim over the state of Arunachal Pradesh. Terming the Indian State as “Zangan—an inherent part of China’s territory,” the Chinese Defence Ministry said that Beijing “never acknowledges and firmly opposes” the “so-called Arunachal Pradesh illegally established by India.”
Following this, India once again rejected the “absurd claims” and “baseless arguments” while asserting that the northeastern state is an “integral and inalienable part of India.”
The Ministry of External Affairs, in an official statement, noted that the people of Arunachal Pradesh will “continue to benefit” from India’s development programmes and infrastructure projects.
“We have noted the comments made by the Spokesperson of the Chinese Defence Ministry advancing absurd claims over the territory of the Indian State of Arunachal Pradesh. Repeating baseless arguments in this regard does not lend such claims any validity,” said the official spokesperson of MEA, Randhir Jaiswal.
“Arunachal Pradesh was, is and will always be an integral and inalienable part of India. Its people will continue to benefit from our development programmes and infrastructure projects,” the statement added.
China, which claims Arunachal Pradesh as South Tibet, routinely objects to Indian leaders’ visits to the state to highlight its claims. Beijing has also named the area ‘Zangnan’.
Earlier in the day, the Chinese ministry of civil affairs released the list of changed names in Arunachal Pradesh, which it calls as ‘Zangnan’ and a part of South Tibet, the Global Times stated.
The official website of the ministry posted 30 additional names for the region. Set to take effect from May 1, the implementation measures stipulate in Article 13 that “place names in foreign languages that may harm China’s territorial claims and sovereignty rights shall not be directly quoted or translated without authorisation,” the report said.
Last month, Jaishankar had termed China’s claim on Arunachal as ‘ludicrous’, and asserted that the state is a natural part of India. “This is not a new issue. I mean China has laid claim, it has expanded its claim. The claims are ludicrous to begin with and remain ludicrous today,” he had said.
“So, I think we’ve been very clear, very consistent on this. And I think you know that is something which will be part of the boundary discussions which are taking place,” he said.
(With inputs from ANI)
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