Indian and Chinese officials concluded three-day talks on a decades-old boundary dispute and agreed to continue the dialogue in China, the Indian foreign ministry said.

Indian and Chinese officials concluded three-day talks on a decades-old boundary dispute and agreed to continue the dialogue in China, the Indian foreign ministry said. [AFP]

India's National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan and Dai Bingguo, China's executive vice foreign minister, met in the southern state of Kerala on the dispute, which led to a brief war in 1962.

"The two special representatives continued their discussions for an agreed framework for the resolution of the boundary question in a constructive and friendly atmosphere," an official foreign ministry statement said Monday.

It said the two officials will meet again in China at a date to be announced later.

The two governments appointed special representatives to address the border issue in June 2003. The last round of talks was held in China in September.

Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao said during a visit last year that resolving the border dispute was a top priority after Narayanan and Dai signed an agreement setting the "guiding principles" for a possible agreement.

A formal ceasefire line was never established after the war but the border has remained mostly peaceful.

India says China occupies 38,000 square kilometres (15,200 square miles) of Indian territory in Kashmir while Beijing claims 90,000 square kilometres of the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh.

Narayanan had said after two days of talks that the discussions were moving in the right direction, but it would take more sessions to resolve the issue.