India and China to resume direct flights after a 5-year suspension : NPR

File – A low -budget airline plane from India, Indigo, is served at Kempegowda International Airport in Bangalore, India, September 16, 2022.

RAFIQ MAQBOOL / AP

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RAFIQ MAQBOOL / AP

BEIJING – India and China plan to resume direct flights between some of their cities after a five -year suspension while relations between the two countries are starting to thaw, Indian authorities announced on Thursday.

Direct flights between the two countries were suspended during the cocoped pandemic in 2020 and did not resume because Beijing and New Delhi are engaged in prolonged border tensions.

Thefts between the designated cities will resume by the end of October, subject to the decisions of the commercial carriers, said the Embassy of India in China in an article on the social media platform WeChat.

The resumption is part of “the Indian government’s approach to the progressive normalization of relations between India and China,” added the embassy.

The biggest Indian Indigo carrier announced Thursday that it would take flights from Kolkata, India, Guangzhou, China from October 26.

The recovery comes after the Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited China last month for the first time in seven years to attend a regional security forum, which was part of the efforts of the two countries to normalize links.

Relations between China and India fell in 2020 after the security forces clashed along a disputed border in the Himalayan mountains. Four Chinese soldiers and 20 Indian soldiers have been killed in the worst violence for decades, freezing high -level political commitments.