E-Paper
‘Looking forward to direct flights resuming between China, India’: Chinese envoy
This, ambassador Xu Feihong said, would allow him to ‘fly back to Beijing directly.’
Xu Feihong, China's ambassador to India, on Wednesday said he was ‘looking forward’ to a future resumption of direct flights between India and his home country, as he would be ably to fly back ‘directly.’
“I am also looking forward to direct flights between India and China so that I can fly back to Beijing directly. Before 2020, we had direct flights…so it will provide more convenience to everybody if we have direct flights. It will save time money,” he said to ANI.
In 2020, amid the Covid-19 pandemic, India imposed visa restrictions on Chinese nationals and halted direct flights to and from the neighbouring nation.
Last month, Xu remarked Beijing's ‘expectation’ from New Delhi is for the latter to take ‘positive steps’ on restarting direct air services for passengers, in addition to facilitating visas for Chinese citizens.
Also Read | ‘China expects positive measures from India on flights and visas’: Xu Feihong
“We are willing to advance exchanges and cooperation with India in science and technology, education and culture and tourism. We also expect positive measures in resuming direct flights and facilitating visas for Chinese citizens,” the ambassador had stated.
The relations between the nuclear-armed neighbours, also the world's two most populous states, have been at an all-time due to China's actions along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh, in April-May 2020.
On October 21, foreign secretary Vikram Misri announced the two sides reached an agreement to disengage from their various friction points at the LAC, the Indo-China border. Further, this paved the way for a bilateral meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping; the leaders met on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in Russia's Kazan, their first bilateral meeting since Xi's visit to Mamallapuram in Tamil Nadu in October 2019.
