India says border dispute with China remains 'unresolved'

A border dispute between India and China remains "unresolved", India's defence minister said on Tuesday (September 15).

Troops of the two countries are locked in their most serious face-offs for years along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) or informal border in the western Himalayas, raising fears of a broader conflict.

Bilateral relations have been unusually tense since a clash at a disputed border area in June that killed 20 Indian soldiers, with an unknown number of Chinese casualties.

Singh said Indian and Chinese troops have had face-offs on the unsettled border in the past, but the scale of deployment of troops and the number of disputed areas was much more than in previous years.

The two sides have long observed a protocol avoiding the use of firearms in the undemarcated frontier, though violence has erupted in the past.