Narendra Modi to Xi Jinping: ‘Maintaining border peace priority’
PM Narendra Modi said that India and China's relations are very important for global peace.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended a bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Russia's Kazan on Wednesday and said maintaining peace and stability on the border should remain “our priority”.
The two leaders met on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit. It was their first bilateral engagement since 2019.
PM Modi said that India and China's relations are crucial for global peace.
"This is our first formal meeting after five years. Excellency, we welcome the agreements that we have reached over the border. Maintaining peace and tranquillity over the border should remain our priority, and mutual trust, mutual respect and mutual sensitivity should remain the basis of our relationship. I am confident that we will hold talks with an open heart and our discussions would be constructive," PM Modi said at the meeting.
PM Modi also welcomed the "consensus" reached between the two countries at the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh.
“We welcome the consensus reached on the issues that have arisen in the last 4 years on the border,” he added.
PM Modi later wrote in a post on X that mutual trust, mutual respect and mutual sensitivity will "guide" India-China bilateral relations.
"Met President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Kazan BRICS Summit. India-China relations are important for the people of our countries and for regional and global peace and stability. Mutual trust, mutual respect and mutual sensitivity will guide bilateral relations," he wrote on X.
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What Xi Jinping said at bilateral meeting
Xi Jinping said it is important for India and China to have more communication and cooperation and properly handle "differences and disagreements".
"It's the first time for us to have a formal meeting in five years. Both, the people in our two countries and the international community, are paying great attention to our meeting. China and India are both ancient civilisations, major developing countries, and important members of the Global South. We are both at a crucial phase in our respective modernisation endeavours. It best serves the fundamental interests of our two countries... For both sides, to keep to the trend of history and the right direction of our bilateral relations, it's important for both sides to have more communication and cooperation, properly handle differences and disagreements, and facilitate each other's pursuit of development aspirations," he said.
"It's also important for both sides to shoulder our international responsibility, set an example for boosting the strength and unity of developing countries, and to contribute to promoting multipolarization and democracy in international relations," he added.
The two leaders last met for a summit in India in October 2019, months before the army face-off started at LAC in eastern Ladakh.
Ties between the two countries deteriorated in June 2020 after a military clash killed at least 20 Indian soldiers and several Chinese troops.
India-China's border truce in Ladakh
The meeting came days after the two Asian giants announced a border accord aimed at ending the four-year-old standoff in Ladakh.
India announced on Monday that the two countries agreed to a pact on the resumption of military patrols along the Line of Actual Control.
Foreign secretary Vikram Misri said the pact will lead to the “disengagement” of troops at LAC.
China confirmed the agreement a day later, saying the two sides had reached resolutions related to their border.
“China will work with India to implement these resolutions properly,” Lin Jian, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson, said on Tuesday.
India maintains that its ties with China would not normalise until the situation at LAC returned to what it was before May 2020.
With inputs from PTI, ANI, AP