Modi, Xi come face-to-face for first time since Galwan clashes

TIL Desk/National/Samarkand/Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday attended the annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in this Silk Road city but there was no sign of any thaw in bilateral ties that came under severe strain following the deadly clash in Galwan Valley around 27 months ago. It is for the first time that Modi and Xi came face-to-face since the start of the border standoff in eastern Ladakh.

On the sidelines of the summit, Modi held separate bilateral meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. However, there was no bilateral meeting between Modi and Xi. Foreign secretary Vinay Kwatra said at a media briefing that all the bilateral meetings that were scheduled and for which requests came took place as per the schedule.

To a question about a meeting which did not take place, he said he did not ‘think there is anything more to read into that’. “All the meetings that were scheduled and for which the requests came to us were factored in and all the meetings took place as per the schedule,” he said. There was no report of a handshake or exchange of pleasantries between Modi and Xi at the summit.