Breaking its prolonged silence over the India-China border row, Bhutan on Thursday refuted China’s claim that it had conveyed to Beijing through diplomatic channels that the trilateral stand-off area at Doklam was not Bhutanese territory.

“Our position on the border issue of Doklam is very clear. Please refer to our statement which has been published on the website of Bhutan’s Foreign Ministry on June 29, 2017,” unidentified official sources in the Bhutanese government were quoted as saying by the news agency ANI.

Sources were responding to a claim made a few days back by a top Chinese diplomat that Bhutan had conveyed to Beijing through diplomatic channels that the area of the stand-off was not its territory.

firm rebuttal of China’s claim by Bhutan is seen as a development that will strengthen New Delhi’s stand that the stand-off must be resolved through diplomatic means.

Except for a statement it made in late June on the situation at Doklam, Thimphu had so far preferred not to air its view on the border row. Its prolonged silence was being questioned or misinterpreted by sections of the media in both India and China.

‘’Bhutan has conveyed to the Chinese side, both on the ground and through diplomatic channels, that the construction of the road inside Bhutanese territory is a direct violation of the agreements and affects the process of demarcating the boundary between our two countries. Bhutan hopes that the status quo in the Doklam area will be maintained as before 16 June 2017,’’ the Bhutanese Foreign Ministry had said in its 29 June press release.

Official sources in New Delhi, meanwhile, maintained that India has been continuously in touch with Bhutan over the Doklam stand-off and briefed it on a regular basis about the situation in the area.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, who is in Kathmandu to attend the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) Foreign Ministers’ meeting, is likely to meet her Bhutanese counterpart Damcho Dorji on the margins of the meet on Friday to discuss various issues. The Doklam situation is bound to come up during the talks. This would be the first high-level meeting between India and Bhutan since the tensions broke out at the trijunction.

pointed out that under a 2012 understanding between India and China on border issues, changing the status quo at trijunctions requires consent of third parties involved. In the case of Doklam, the third country is Bhutan, which has already lodged a protest with Beijing over the road construction activity. For New Delhi, the dispute in on the Bhutanese territory and Indian troops went in as per an understanding with the Himalayan nation, to prevent the Chinese troops from constructing the road.

Bhutan does not have diplomatic relations with China but the two countries have conducted regular talks on border and security issues since 1980 with a view to reducing tensions.