Chennai / Mamallapuram: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping have expressed happiness over the arrangements made by the Tamilnadu government for the second informal summit between India and China, which concluded today.
According to sources, both the leaders were impressed with the hospitality, security and other arrangements made by the State government. ”Especially, Jinping and his team were touched by the cultural programmes that were performed at various places from airport to Mamallapuram,” they said.
”Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami personally supervised all the arrangements. He was in Mamallapuram till late on Thursday night to monitor things,” sources added.
Modi and Jinping held a fresh round of one-on-one discussion today at a tranquil beach resort overlooking the Bay of Bengal in Kovalam on the second and final day of the informal summit, signalling an intent to refashion ties for greater bilateral cooperation.
After around an hour-long talks at the Fisherman’s Cove resort, the two leaders took a stroll along the beach and were seen engaged in discussion. Earlier, Modi and Xi came together to the venue in a golf cart.
Sources said the talks between the two leaders went off well. The tete-e-tete was followed by delegation level discussions.
Xi arrived here in this bustling port city on Friday amid strain in bilateral ties between the two countries after India withdrew Jammu and Kashmir’s special status and bifurcated the state into two Union Territories.
On Friday, Modi and Xi held a two-and-a-half-hour ‘open and cordial’ one-on-one discussion over dinner, vowing to jointly combat terrorism and radicalisation, and expand bilateral trade and investment..
The meeting at the magnificent Shore temple complex under a sea-facing colourful tent went beyond the scheduled time as both leader touched upon a range of issues over sumptuous local delicacies.
”This was quality time that the two leaders spent together one-on-one,” Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale had said after the meeting, adding vowed to work together so that radicalisation and terrorism do not affect the multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and multi-religious societies of the two nations.