India, China to hold 70 events to mark 70 years of diplomatic ties

To mark the establishment of 70 years of diplomatic relations, India and China will both hold 70 programmes, 35 in each country, Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale said.

This was conveyed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the SCO summit in Bishkek.

"The Prime Minister proposed that there is a need to mark the occasion in a manner that reflects this new relationship to mark the 70th anniversary. He also said that India and China should hold 70 important events, that is 35 each in India and China. The two leaders have tasked their respective foreign ministers to discuss this matter at the second meeting of the high-level mechanism," Gokhale told reporters in a press briefing here.

Modi and Jinping will have an informal summit in India later this year on the lines of the informal parleys that had in Wuhan in China last year.

However, Gokhale said the date and venue of the summit is yet to be decided while media reports in India had earlier said it would be in Modi's home state Gujarat.

The Prime Minister told Xi that Pakistan needs to create an atmosphere free from terror and take concrete action to end the scourge but does not see Islamabad doing it at this stage.

In April last year, Modi and Xi had met in Wuhan for an informal summit in order to deepen bilateral cooperation. That meeting came following the 73-day standoff in Bhutan's Doklam plateau in 2017, which strained bilateral ties between the two countries.

Modi is on a two-day visit to Kyrgyzstan for attending the SCO summit. This is his first visit to a multilateral forum after reelection.