The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Wednesday said that India and China are holding talks to finalise the date and venue for the 2019 informal summit meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The MEA was reacting to a media report stating that the meeting between the two leaders will be held in Varanasi on 11 October.

“During the first Informal Summit in Wuhan, Chinese President Xi had accepted the invitation of PM Modi to visit India for the next Informal Summit in 2019. The two sides are in touch, through diplomatic channels, to finalise the date and venue for the meeting. Details about the visit will be announced in due course after the details are finalised,” the MEA said in a statement.

A report published by The Indian Express stated that New Delhi has proposed to hold the informal summit in PM Modi’s constituency in Uttar Pradesh and that Beijing is considering it positively.

The report says that PM Modi wants to host Xi in his constituency because the Chinese President had hosted him in Xiamen, the Communist leader’s stronghold, during the BRICS summit.

The first informal summit was held in Wuhan in April last year, which led to a thaw in the icy relations between the two countries in the aftermath of the Doklam crisis.

This year’s summit will be held in a much better environment, with Beijing lifting its technical hold that was preventing UNSC from declaring Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) chief Maulana Masood Azhar a global terrorist.

President Xi hosted PM Modi in the picturesque city located in Hubei province for two days, during which the two leaders held one-on-one conversations, delegation level talks, took a boat ride on East Lake and walked side-by-side along a promenade by the bank of the lake lined by trees on both sides.

The delegation-level talk was attended by six top officials from each side. National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale and Indian Ambassador to China Gautam Bambawale were present in the meeting. Xi’s side included Member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee Ding Xuexiang, Member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Yang Jiechi and State Councillor and Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi.

Xi had then told the PM that Wuhan was selected for the summit because of the ancient city’s historic and cultural influence on China’s history.

The PM had then invited Xi to India for an informal summit in 2019.