BRICS Summit LIVE: Modi, Xi to Hold First Bilateral Meet in 5 years after LAC Breakthrough

Elaborating on the agreement reached between India and China on patrolling arrangements along Line of Actual Control (LAC), Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said that in the “pending areas under discussion, patrolling and grazing activities will revert to the situation as it obtained in 2020”. He noted that agreement was focused on issues that had remained outstanding in the past couple of years. 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.”

Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, briefing the media in Kazan, said, “I can confirm that there will be a bilateral meeting between Prime Minister Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping tomorrow on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit.”

This will be the first formal bilateral meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping in five years. They last met for an informal summit in Mahabalipuram in October 2019, just before the Chinese incursions in eastern Ladakh led to a military standoff along the LAC. While they had brief meetings in Bali (2022) and Johannesburg (2023), Wednesday’s meeting will be their first structured discussion.