"I can confirm that there will be a bilateral meeting held between Prime Minister Modi and President Xi tomorrow, October 23, on the sidelines of the BRICS summit," Misri told a press conference.
These will be the first bilateral talks between Modi and Xi Jinping since the clashes between Indian and Chinese troops in the Ladakh border region in 2020.
India and China have a longstanding territorial dispute over nearly 60,000 square kilometers in Arunachal Pradesh and parts of northern Kashmir. The Line of Actual Control (LAC) serves as the de-facto border in Ladakh. The dispute escalated into a border war in 1962.
Tensions flared again in May 2020 with clashes near Pangong Lake, leading both nations to increase their military presence in the region. By February 2021, most troops had been withdrawn, and negotiations resumed. In September 2022, both sides conducted another round of troop disengagement but unresolved issues remained. Recently, reports suggest that 50,000 to 60,000 troops were stationed on both sides of the India-China border.
Earlier in the day, it was announced that India and China reached an agreement on patrol procedures along the LAC in Ladakh. Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar later confirmed that troop disengagement had been completed in the area.