Chinese Foreign Minister likely to reschedule India visit

Chinese Foreign Minister and State Councillor Wang Yi may reschedule a planned visit to India next week to hold boundary talks with National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, diplomatic sources said on Tuesday. Doval and Wang are the designated Special Representatives (SRs) of the two countries for the boundary talks.

The next round of SR talks was to be held early next week. Wang's visit was also aimed at finalising the ground work for President Xi Jinping's upcoming visit to India for the second informal summit with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"The Chinese foreign minister is rescheduling his visit to India," said a source. The two sides have already held over 20 rounds of border talks under the framework of SR dialogue which was set up to find an early solution to the border dispute.

The India-China border dispute covers 3,488-km-long Line of Actual Control. China claims Arunachal Pradesh as part of southern Tibet while India contests it. Both sides have been maintaining that pending the final resolution of the boundary issue, it is necessary to maintain peace and tranquility in the border areas.

Last month, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar visited China and discussed Xi's upcoming visit to India. In the second informal summit, Modi and Xi are likely to focus on further broadening India-China ties.

The two leaders held their first informal summit in April last year in the Chinese city of Wuhan months after bilateral ties came under severe strain following a 73-day standoff between the armies of the two countries in Doklam.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)