Tensions have escalated between Indian and Chinese forces along their disputed Himalayan border after accusations that shots were fired for the first time in 45 years.
China and India Tuesday accused each other of firing shots on their flash point Himalayan border in a further escalation of military tension between the nuclear-armed Asian rivals.
China said it had responded to the "severe military provocation" with unspecified counter-measures.
Chinese defense ministry accused India of "severe military provocation", saying soldiers crossed the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the western border region on Monday and "opened fire to threaten the Chinese border defense patrol officers".
"According to the Chinese side, Chinese troops approached the India side for negotiations, and then they say some Indian troops fired at the Chinese side," Al Jazeera's Katrina Yu reported from Beijing.
"As a result, China's military said it was forced to take counter measures - although we don't know what those counter measures were, or if there were any casualties," she added.
India denies transgressionIndia was swift to give its own account, accusing Chinese forces of "blatantly violating agreements" and firing "a few rounds in the air" to intimidate their Indian rivals.
"It is the PLA that has been blatantly violating agreements and carrying out aggressive manoeuvres," the Indian army said in a statement on Tuesday. "Despite the grave provocation, (our) own troops exercised great restraint and behaved in a mature and responsible manner."
Al Jazeera's Elizabeth Puranam, reporting from New Delhi said according to India, "China's army was trying to close in on one of India's positions - and that when they [China] were dissuaded by their own troops, they fired in the air".
China's western military command said the incursion occurred on Monday along the southern coast of Pangong Tso Lake in the area known in Chinese as Shenpaoshan. On the Indian side, the area is known as Chushul, where the two countries' local military commanders have held several rounds of talks to defuse the tense standoff.
Zhang Shuili, spokesperson for the Western Theater Command of the PLA, said India had violated agreements reached by the two countries and warned their actions could "easily cause misunderstandings and misjudgments".
China's foreign ministry said Indian troops had illegally crossed the LAC and had been the first to fire shots. "This is a serious military provocation," spokesman Zhao Lijian told a daily news conference in Beijing on Tuesday.
The activity on Monday occurred in the Chushul area on the southern bank of Pangong Lake, a glacial lake divided by the de facto frontier and where the India-China face-off began on its northern flank in early May.
The countries fought a brief border war in 1962 but, officially, no shots have been fired in the area since 1975 when four Indian troops were killed in an ambush.
Both sides have sent tens of thousands of troops to the disputed Himalayan border, which sits at an altitude of more than 4,000 metres (13,500 feet).
India's External Affairs Minister
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