PM Modi-Jinping Meeting: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping will hold bilateral talks on Wednesday on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Russia. This will be their first important meeting since the East Ladakh border dispute arose in May 2020. Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri gave this information. This announcement has come at a time when just a day ago India and China agreed on an agreement for patrolling by their armies on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh. This is a major breakthrough towards ending the four-year-long deadlock.

Modi-Jinping meeting will be held in Kazan.

Misri said, I can confirm that there will be a bilateral meeting between Prime Minister Modi and Chinese President Jinping tomorrow (Wednesday). In November 2022, Modi and Xi Jinping greeted each other and had a brief conversation at a dinner hosted by the Indonesian President for G-20 leaders. In August last year too, the Indian Prime Minister and the Chinese President had a brief and informal conversation in Johannesburg during the BRICS (Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa) summit.

The meeting between PM Modi and Xi will take place in Kazan, the venue of the BRICS summit. When asked about the agreement on patrolling between India and China on Monday, Misri said that the immediate focus will be on disengagement of troops and then the issue of de-escalation and withdrawal of troops will be considered at an appropriate time.

Clashes on LAC are expected to stop.

He said this would include that patrolling and grazing activities, wherever applicable, in the pending areas under discussion, would revert to the 2020 status quo. He said earlier disengagement agreements were not raised again in these discussions and the agreement reached on Monday morning focused on issues that had remained pending over the past few years. Responding to another question, Misri said the arrangement that has been worked out is expected to prevent clashes that have happened in the past on the LAC. He said, we have to constantly try that the mechanism of agreement should be such that such clashes can be prevented.

Fierce clashes took place in Galwan Valley in 2020

Relations between the two Asian countries deteriorated significantly after the fierce clash in the Galwan Valley in June 2020, which was the most serious military conflict between the two sides in decades. The two sides had disengaged from several places after a series of military and diplomatic talks in the last few years. However, the matter of Depsang and Demchok remained stuck in the talks. It is understood that the agreement announced on Monday will facilitate patrolling in the Depsang and Demchok areas.