India steps up meets with China & Russia
PM Narendra Modi
's visit to China for the SCO summit, India has intensified engagement with both China and Russia.
As reported earlier, Chinese foreign minister and Special Representative (SR) for boundary talks Wang Yi will visit India next month and his Indian counterpart S Jaishankar will travel to Moscow.
India and China are expected to jointly announce Saturday Wang's visit on Aug 18. Jaishankar is scheduled to visit Moscow on August 21.
Modi is likely to have bilateral meetings with Chinese and Russian Presidents, Xi Jinping and
Vladimir Putin
respectively, in Tianjin, the summit venue.
Wang and NSA Ajit Doval are expected to hold the 24th round of SR talks for management of peace and tranquillity in border areas and to explore a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable solution to the boundary question.
Doval had visited China in Dec last year for the last meeting between the SRs in which they underlined the importance of maintaining peace and tranquillity in the border areas to promote overall development of the India-China bilateral relationship.
Wang is also likely to call on Modi during his visit.
Wang is also expected to meet Jaishankar to discuss the agenda for Modi's bilateral with Xi on the margins of the SCO.
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Jaishankar had last month visited Beijing for the SCO foreign ministers' meet and also held a bilateral meeting with Wang. He had raised issues related to terrorism, border management and also trade restrictions imposed by China.
Jaishankar's visit to Moscow and his bilateral meeting with counterpart Sergey Lavrov will also be important for reviewing bilateral cooperation ahead of Modi's likely meeting with Putin on the sidelines of the SCO summit. Lavrov himself is expected to travel to India before the Russian President's big visit for the annual India-Russia summit towards the end of the year. This will be Putin's first visit to India since the Russia-Ukraine war broke out in 2022.
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