India and China have struck a deal that could ease tension along its disputed border

CNN —

India and China have reached an agreement on military disengagement along their disputed border, New Delhi said, a step toward reducing frictions between the nuclear-armed neighbors that comes as both countries’ leaders arrive in Russia for a summit.

India’s foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar on Monday said the agreement on military patrolling in certain areas brought the situation back to where it was in 2020 prior to a deadly border clash that year, thus completing the “disengagement process” with China.

Beijing later confirmed on Tuesday that the two sides had “reached a solution” following “close communication on relevant issues of the China-India border through diplomatic and military channels.”

The announcement has been widely seen as setting the stage for potential talks between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who each headed Tuesday to Kazan in southwestern Russia for a summit of BRICS nations.

Both foreign ministries declined to comment on whether the two leaders would hold formal one-on-one talks in Kazan.

Russian President Vladimir Putin takes part virtually in the 2023 BRICS summit in Johannesburg.

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Neither side released full details of the agreement or details of how it would be carried out in the contentious, high-altitude region that has long been a source of friction between New Delhi and Beijing.

Both India and China maintain a significant military presence along their 2,100-mile (3,379-kilometer) de facto border, known as the Line of Actual Control (LAC), which has never been clearly defined and has remained a source of friction since a bloody war