Describing the Sino-Indian border row as a "complex issue", Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Tuesday said it cannot be resolved overnight and that "new progress" would be made in the negotiations as long as both countries showed sincerity and "mutual accommodation".
"It is no easy task to resolve such a complex issue left from the past and we cannot expect that the issue will be resolved overnight," Wen said in his customary press conference at the conclusion of the session of China's Parliament the National People's Congress in Beijing.
"This being said, I would like to say that as long as China and India have sincerity and as long as we approach this issue on the basis of equality, mutual benefit and mutual accommodation, new progress will be made in the negotiations," said Wen, elected for a second five-year term by the NPC.
Wen noted that political parameters and principles had been established in the talks between the two countries and that negotiations had been conducted in several rounds.
India and China had reached the agreement on Political Parameters and Guiding Principles for the settlement of the festering boundary row between the two countries in April 2005.
Special representatives of the two countries have held 11 rounds of talks so far.
In the 'Shared Vision for the 21st Century' document signed between India and China during the visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in January 2008, both sides had said that the representatives shall complete at an early date the task of arriving at an agreed framework of settlement on the basis of the 2005 agreement.
The two sides had also stated that they remain firmly committed to resolving outstanding differences, including on the boundary question, through peaceful negotiations, while ensuring that such differences are not allowed to affect the positive development of bilateral relations.
Both India and China had also reiterated their determination to seek a "fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable" solution to the boundary issue and build a "boundary of peace and friendship" on the basis of the 2005 agreement.
