Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold a bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday on the sidelines of the Brics Summit in Kazan, Russia. This will be the first formal meeting between the two leaders in five years.
In a press briefing in Kazan on Tuesday evening, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri confirmed that the meeting will be held on the sidelines of the Brics Summit. The timing will be confirmed later, he said.
The development comes a day after the government announced that India and China have reached an agreement to resume patrolling at the remaining friction points along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh, where tensions have persisted since the Galwan Valley clash in 2020.
The Chinese side also confirmed the development today, saying that a resolution has been reached on “relevant matters” and that it will work with New Delhi to implement these resolutions.
The last time a formal meeting happened between PM Modi and Xi Jinping was in Mahabalipuram in October 2019.
The Indian and Chinese militaries have been locked in a standoff since May 2020 and a full resolution of the border row has not yet been achieved though the two sides have disengaged from a number of friction points.
The ties between the two countries nosedived significantly following the fierce clash in the Galwan Valley in June 2020 that marked the most serious military conflict between the two sides in decades.
India has been maintaining that its ties with China cannot be normal unless there is peace in the border areas.
Article source: indiatoday.in
