New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping will have their first bilateral meeting in five years on Wednesday, the foreign secretary announced hours after Beijing confirmed that India and China had made a breakthrough on border talks.
“I can confirm that there will be a bilateral meeting held between Prime Minister Modi and President Xi Jinping tomorrow (October 23) on the sidelines of the BRICS summit,” foreign secretary Vikram Misri said at a press conference in Kazan, Russia, the location of the summit.
Misri added: “The exact time and other logistics are being worked out, but the meeting will take place tomorrow.”
He had announced on Monday that Indian and Chinese negotiators reached an agreement on “patrolling arrangements” along the border in eastern Ladakh, following which external affairs minister S. Jaishankar said the “disengagement process [along the border] has been completed”.
Beijing confirmed the development on Tuesday, with foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian saying the two sides had “reached a solution” on the stand-off which began in April-May 2020.
“Over a recent period of time, China and India have reached resolutions on issues concerning the border area following close communication through diplomatic and military channels. China commends the progress made and will continue working with India for the sound implementation of these resolutions,” he said.
The developments mark a thaw in diplomatic ties that were frozen starting 2020, when the stand-off between the two armies began at the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh.
During the BRICS leaders’ dinner on Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin was seen sitting in between Modi and Xi, making for symbolic imagery given that tomorrow’s bilateral meeting between the leaders of the two Asian giants will take place on Russian soil.
Putin was seated between Modi and Xi at the BRICS leaders’ dinner in Kazan. Photo: Screenshot from YouTube/Narendra Modi.
Speaking in Kazan on Tuesday, Misri also said, echoing Jaishankar, that the agreement will entail that “patrolling and indeed, grazing activities wherever applicable, will revert to the situation as it obtained in 2020”.
“I think, as to the other part of your question, as far as the disengagement agreements reached previously are concerned, those agreements were not reopened in these discussions. The agreement that was reached yesterday, very early yesterday morning, was focused on issues that had remained outstanding in the last couple of years,” he said.
While de-escalation had already occurred at five out of seven friction points, the “outstanding” issues over the past three years have been the strategic areas of the Depsang Plains and Demchok.
When asked why China had changed its mind, Misri said that the question was a “bit premature”.
“The arrangements and the agreements that have been reached have to be first implemented on the ground. This analysis of how it happened can be done later”.
He stated that the focus was now on disengagement and that talks about de-escalation and de-induction will happen at the right time.
The Indian foreign secretary said that the prevention of future clashes was an “important question”.
“It is our hope, and it will be our effort that the arrangements that have been reached will help prevent the clashes which had happened previously near the Line of Actual Control. We have to see that in the future and always attempt to ensure that the mechanics of the arrangement will stop this kind of clashes,” stated Misri.
