“Disengagement means that both sides are basically no longer in the forward positions that they were in through the stand-off,” an Indian Army official said.

“They will not be immediately withdrawn but they will go back by certain distances, depending on the location.”

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The army official said that the disengagement process would need to be followed by talks at the political level.

“This buffer zone will be a temporary arrangement until the political leadership can sit together and agree on the exact locations and patrolling arrangements for both sides, as has been the norm for decades now.”

Both China and India claim territory held by the other side along their long border.

For the past two months their troops have been locked in a face-off at multiple points along the Line of Actual Control – the precise boundaries of which are themselves contested.

On June 15 troops from both sides clashed near Pangong Tso lake, leaving 20 Indian soldiers and an undisclosed number of Chinese dead in the most serious incident along the frontier for decades.

The differences in tone adopted by the two foreign ministries in statements issued after Wang and Doval’s call highlighted the potential problems ahead, observers said.

Brahma Chellaney, professor of strategic studies at the New Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research, said the language used by the Chinese side suggested India was at fault.

“In keeping with its standard playback for presenting offence as defence, China, in its statement yesterday, alluded to India as the aggressor and asserted that it will ‘continue firmly safeguarding our territorial sovereignty’. Simply put, China is saying it will defend its new territorial gains,” Chellaney said.

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Swaran Singh, a defence analyst at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, has noted that both India and China have repeatedly underlined their intention to disengage following the deadly clash in June, but the reality on the ground was that both sides were reinforcing their positions.

Singh warned that the disengagement process could be “painstakingly long-drawn-out” and the risk of further confrontations remained.

“Disengagement will happen but only haltingly and will not mean the end of tensions resulting in frequent crises with increasing costs attached each time,” he said.

Monday’s statements from the two countries’ foreign ministries both emphasised the need to reach agreement as soon as possible, but were otherwise light on detail.

The Indian foreign ministry said Wang and Doval “agreed that it was necessary to ensure at the earliest complete disengagement of the troops along the LAC and de-escalation from India-China border areas for full restoration of peace and tranquillity. In this regard they further agreed that both sides should complete the ongoing disengagement process along the LAC expeditiously”.

The Chinese said: “Both sides … stressed the importance to promptly act on the consensus reached in the commander-level talks between Chinese and Indian border troops, and complete the disengagement of front-line troops as soon as possible.”

Zhang Jiadong, a professor at Fudan University and former Chinese diplomat in India, was more optimistic about the prospects of implementing the deal.

He said the agreement showed “great promise” in contrast to an earlier agreement to disengage at the start of the June, which failed to prevent the bloody clash.

Additional reporting by Sarah Zheng