Prime Minister Narendra Modi is unlikely to have a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the margins of the G20 summit in Hamburg that begins Friday.
China said that the atmosphere was not right for a bilateral meeting, a reference to the standoff between the border guards of the two armies close to India’s northeastern border.
“But we did not ask for any meeting, so where is the question of atmosphere being conducive or not,” an Indian official, who is accompanying Modi to Israel, told HT on condition of anonymity.
There was no meeting planned between Modi and Xi, the Indian side said, adding the two countries were likely to allow their armies to resolve the Doklam stand-off.
“The atmosphere is not right for a bilateral meeting between President Xi and Prime Minister Modi,” a Chinese foreign ministry official said in Beijing earlier in the day.
They could cross paths at the BRICS meeting on the sidelines of the two-day G-20 summit, Indian officials said, adding the two leaders already had a positive meeting last month on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Astana.
For more than three weeks, Indian and Chinese border guards are in a tense face-off, the longest between the two sides, in Doklam area near the Bhutan tri-junction over allegations and counter allegations of trespass and illegal construction of roads and bunkers.
China has accused Indian troops of trespassing into Doklam, which the Chinese refer to as Donglang, a disputed territory claimed by Bhutan.
China and its state-run media have been aggressive over the border impasse, even threatening war.
