Arunachal was, is, and will remain an integral part of India: MEA

New Delhi, March 28 The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said on Thursday that China’s repetitive claims on Arunachal Pradesh will not change India’s position, and the northeastern state will remain an integral and inalienable part of India.

India and China have been exchanging barbs over Arunachal Pradesh ever since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the state earlier this month to inaugurate the strategically important Sela tunnel.

“Our position on Arunachal Pradesh has been made very clear time and again. We have also issued statements in this regard recently,” MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in his weekly media briefing on Thursday.

“China may repeat its baseless claims as many times as it wants… that is not going to change our position. Arunachal Pradesh was, is, and will remain an integral and inalienable part of India,” Jaiswal said in response to a media query.

For the fourth time in this month, China said that Zangnan — the Chinese name for Arunachal Pradesh — has always been its territory, even as India rejected Beijing’s claims as “ludicrous and absurd”.

During his recent Southeast Asia tour, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar left no opportunity to slam the Asian nation for failing to uphold the longstanding agreements with India.

The response from the MEA came after both nations held the 29th meeting of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on India-China Border Affairs in Beijing to discuss and resolve the remaining issues along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Western Sector of the border areas.

Further, responding to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s remarks on Khalistan leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar’s killing in British Columbia in June last year, Jaiswal said there is “nothing new” in what the Canadian leader said.

“I would recall that on September 21 last year, my predecessor (Arindam Bagchi) had mentioned that India remains ready… and I would like to reiterate that we are ready to investigate any specific and concrete information if it is shared with us,” Jaiswal told reporters.

“But, we are yet to receive any such information,” he said, adding that “we have also cautioned against playing politics and giving extremists more space”.

Trudeau told Canada-based Cable Public Affairs Channel that the “killing of a Canadian national on Canadian soil is something that we all should take extremely seriously”.

Stating that the declaration by him on September 18 was not made lightly, Trudeau added that they are looking to work constructively with the Indian government “to get to the bottom of this (issue)”