India\u2019s air force chief made the inaugural landing of a military transport aircraft at a new airbase capable of fighter jet operations close to the disputed Himalayan border with China, a defence official said on Thursday.<\/p>\n
The move comes amid a thaw in ties between the nuclear-armed neighbours, following a milestone pact last October to ease military tension along their de facto border and a visit this year to China by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.<\/p>\n
Air Chief Marshal AP Singh landed the C-130J aircraft on Wednesday at the Mudh-Nyoma air force station in Ladakh, perched at a height of about 4,000m, added the official, who sought anonymity as the matter is a sensitive one.<\/p>\n
The Indian Air Force and the defence ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.<\/p>\n
The new airbase, the region\u2019s third such key station, is just 30 kilometres from the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis new airfield in Ladakh, capable of fighter operations, will add a new challenge for both of our adversaries,\u201d retired Air Marshal Sanjeev Kapoor wrote on X, referring to neighbours China and Pakistan.<\/p>\n
China has an airfield at a similar height, he added.<\/p>\n
Mistrust persists between China and India despite the thaw, Indian analysts and officials say, with the Indian Army chief pointing this year to continued heightened troop presence and infrastructure build-up on the border by both sides.<\/p>\n
India and China share a poorly demarcated border that stretches 3,800km and has been disputed since the 1950s. They fought a brief but brutal war over it in 1962.<\/p>\n
Ties soured after a deadly border clash in 2020, before their 2024 pact brought a thaw and easing of some curbs, allowing resumption of direct flights and two-way visits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
India\u2019s air force chief made the inaugural landing of a military transport aircraft at a new airbase capable of fighter jet operations close to the disputed Himalayan border with China, a defence official said on Thursday. The move comes amid a thaw in ties between the nuclear-armed neighbours, following a milestone pact last October to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13386,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13385"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13387,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13385\/revisions\/13387"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}