Arunachal Pradesh is OURS !!!!! --- India

Amidst warming of ties, China has taken exception to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Arunachal Pradesh and his assertion that the state belongs to India, evoking a strong reaction from New Delhi.

Almost a week after Singh visited Arunachal Pradesh and said the state was ‘our land of rising sun’, Chinese Foreign Ministry officials have conveyed to officials in the Indian Mission in Beijing that they were unhappy with the visit and his comments there.

Beijing feels that it was not appropriate for the Prime Minister to visit a state, major parts of which it claims are its territory.

In a sharp reaction, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee asserted that Arunachal Pradesh was part of India and the Prime Minister has right to visit any part of the country.

"Arunachal Pradesh is an integral part of our country. We are having regular representation in our Parliament elected by people of Arunachal Pradesh. Therefore, it is quite obvious that the Prime Minister will visit any part of the country," Mukherjee said in Mumbai.

Singh, during his maiden visit to Arunachal on January 31, had said that the state was ‘our land of rising sun’, in a clear message to China that it belongs to India.

The Chinese unhappiness comes more than a fortnight after Singh had a good visit to Beijing when the two countries agreed to expedite resolution of the boundary issue.

Chinese claim over Arunachal has been nagging the ties between the two countries for long. The issue gets flared up when the Chinese troops at regular intervals intrude into the Indian territory to demonstrate their claim on the land.

India has, however, been seeking to play down these incursions by arguing that these were a result of ‘differences in perception’.

The Special Representatives of the two countries are working out a solution as per the Political Parameters and Guiding Principles signed in 2005.