Panaji: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday met Chinese President Xi Jinping at Goa's Taj Exotica Hotel & Resort, amid rising tensions between the two countries over Beijing’s opposition to a UN ban on JeM chief Masood Azhar and its continued support to Pakistan.
The two leaders will soon hold a dialogue again on New Delhi's bid for membership of the elite Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) in which it hopes "differences" will be narrowed down.
President Xi Jinping told Prime Minister Narendra Modi that a second round of dialouge on the issue of India's entry into the NSG, over which China has reservations, will be held soon.
The Chinese President's word on the issue came after the Prime Minister told him that India was looking forward to working with China on realising its membership of the NSG.
"India's broad concerns in the current state have been conveyed to China. The intention was that both sides should narrow down their areas of differences," Vikas Swarup, Spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs said on Twitter.
Replying to questions whether China had softened its stand on India's membership, Swarup said, "This shows there is dialogue, a good strategic dialogue. Of course this will narrow differences."
Asked whether China reiterated the position that membership of the NSG was by consensus among parties, he replied "no".
Read: Will continue to block India’s NSG bid, efforts to ban Masood Azhar: China
The two leaders also discussed terrorism and India also pushed for a UN ban on Masood Azhar.
"No country is immune from terrorism. India and China must increase cooperation to deal with terror," Modi told Xi during the meet. Modi said that both India and China had been victims of terrorism which was a scourge afflicting the entire region.
During the meet, both sides recognised terrorism as a key issue and Xi said that China would strengthen security dialogue and partnership with India.
"My meeting with President Xi Jinping was fruitful. We discussed various aspects of India-China ties," Modi tweeted after the meet.
"India is maintaining dialogue with China on pushing for UN ban on JeM terrorist Masood Azhar. We expect China will see logic in it," the MEA said.
The meeting between the two leaders came a day after China said that it will continue to block India's NSG membership bid and New Delhi's attempts to get Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) chief Masood Azhar designated as a terrorist by the UN.
China's needling of India on these two important matters shows Beijing's strong links with Pakistan, and its steadfast opposition to give India a greater global role in the comity of nations. Interestingly, without naming China but in an obvious reference to it, India had earlier said that there was only "one country" that was opposed to both UN Sanctions on Masood Azhar as well as India's entry into the NSG.
