Kapoor in Delhi. (PTI)

New Delhi, Oct. 27: Army chief General Deepak Kapoor today said he expected the first bilateral army exercise with the Chinese Peoples’ Liberation Army to take place by the end of this year despite delays and protocol problems that have upset its schedule.

The army chief’s hope was held out even as Sonia Gandhi is making a high-profile visit to Beijing. The drill was decided upon during the visit of former army chief General Joginder Jaswant Singh to Beijing in May this year. But it was delayed for reasons that the defence ministry has not explained so far.

One of the reasons was suspected to be a signal of Chinese unhappiness with the Indian military’s growing interactions with the US and its Nato allies. “I expect the exercise to take place in December despite the delay. The dates have not been fixed yet. But I must tell you that our border personnel meetings (with the Chinese) have been very good and friendly,” Kapoor said.

The army chief also indicated that transgressions on the Line of Actual Control did not complicate military ties since confidence-building measures were being implemented. He said there was no major transgression by either side but there were differences in the perception of the border.

“The transgressions are inadvertent and happen when border patrols move by their maps and boundary perceptions,” he said. “This is not new. There have been minor transgressions because there is a boundary dispute,” he said.

Earlier this week, the chief of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, V.K. Joshi, the main Indian force along the border with China, had said there were 140 incidents of Chinese border patrols transgressing into Indian territory in the past year.

Kapoor, speaking to reporters after the conclusion of a commanders’ conference, said he would take strict action against corruption in the force.