A meeting between the two leaders would come just two days after they settled a tense border dispute in the Himalayas.

Ties between the two countries deteriorated in July 2020 after a military clash killed at least 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese. That turned into a long-running standoff in the rugged mountainous area, where each side has stationed tens of thousands of military personnel backed by artillery, tanks and fighter jets.

The two leaders met on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in the Russian city of Kazan, the Indian government and Chinese state media said, two days after New Delhi announced that it had reached a deal with Beijing to resolve the four-year military stand-off on their disputed Himalayan frontier.