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NEW DELHI: India is set to resume direct flights with China in late October, its foreign ministry said, with no commercial airlines having operated between the world’s two most populous countries for the past five years.

The nuclear-armed neighbors were locked in a standoff triggered by deadly clashes along their Himalayan border, known as the Line of Actual Control, in 2020.

Tens of thousands of troops, tanks, and artillery have been deployed on both sides of the LAC, with both countries also building roads, bunkers, and airstrips in the high-altitude region.

Despite multiple rounds of talks, tensions persisted, with India curbing Chinese investments, banning dozens of apps, and tightening trade scrutiny while deepening ties with the US, Japan, and Australia.

Border talks only resumed in August this year, during Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s visit to New Delhi, which was widely interpreted as a signal of an easing of tensions. At the same meeting, the two sides agreed to restore air links and finalize a deal between their civil aviation authorities on direct air services.

“This agreement of the civil aviation authorities will further facilitate people-to-people contact between India and China, contributing towards the gradual normalisation of bilateral exchanges,” India’s Ministry of External Affairs said on Thursday.

“It has now been agreed that direct air services connecting designated points in India and China can resume by late October 2025, in keeping with the winter season schedule, subject to commercial decision of the designated carriers from the two countries and fulfilment of all operational criteria.”

India’s largest carrier, IndiGo, announced on social media that it would start operating daily non-stop flights between Kolkata and Guangzhou on Oct. 26.

A thaw between India and China began in late October last year, when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping held their first bilateral meeting in five years at a summit of BRICS nations in Russia’s Kazan.

They met again last month as Modi visited China for a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization last month. It was the Indian prime minister’s first official trip to China since the SCO summit in Wuhan in 2018.

The agreement to restart direct air connections was important as a first step in rebuilding the bilateral relationship, Manoj Kewalramani, chairperson of the Indo-Pacific Research Program and a China studies fellow at the Takshashila Institution, told Arab News.

“It is in the inherent interest of both India and China to have a stable and predictable relationship. This process of trying to gradually find some sort of a new arrangement began in October last year,” he said.

“It’s telling that it has taken nearly one year since the prime minister first met President Xi Jinping to put together this air services agreement and to resume direct flights, but it is significant as a first step in the gradual process of arriving at some sort of new balance in the relationship.”