India, China Agree To Resume Kailash Mansarovar Yatra, Direct Flights

The Ministry of External Affairs said that the two sides have also agreed to take appropriate measures to further promote people-to-people exchanges, including media and think-tank interactions.

India and China decided to resume the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra on January 27.

India and China decided to resume the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra and direct flights between the two countries during Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri's two-day visit to Beijing, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said on Monday.

The MEA, in a statement, said that the two sides have decided to resume the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra in the summer of 2025 and agreed in principle to resume direct air services between the two countries. The development comes during Misri's two-day trip to the Chinese capital, where he attended a meeting under the Foreign Secretary-Vice Minister mechanism.

During the Foreign Secretary-Vice Foreign Minister meeting, the two sides reviewed the state of India-China bilateral relations comprehensively and agreed to take certain people-centric steps to stabilize and rebuild ties, the MEA said.

"The two sides decided to resume the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra in the summer of 2025; the relevant mechanism will discuss the modalities for doing so as per existing agreements. They also agreed to hold an early meeting of the India-China Expert Level Mechanism to discuss resumption of provision of hydrological data and other cooperation pertaining to trans-border rivers," the government statement said.

Indian pilgrims were barred from using the official routes for the Kailash-Mansarovar pilgrimage, which the Chinese government closed in 2020 ostensibly due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The ministry also said that the two sides agreed to take appropriate measures to further promote and facilitate people-to-people exchanges, including media and think-tank interactions. 

The two sides have also agreed in principle to resume direct air services between the two nations. "The relevant technical authorities on the two sides will meet and negotiate an updated framework for this purpose at an early date," the MEA statement added.

Foreign Secretary Misri, who is in China till January 27, also called on Member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, and Minister of the International Department of the Communist Party of China Liu Jianchao.

The two countries had decided to bring the bilateral ties back on track by resuming Kailash Mansarovar Yatra, direct flights between New Delhi and Beijing and enhancement of visas, among other things during External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar's meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Brazil. Jaishankar and Wang Yi had met on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro, where the two discussed the "next steps" between India and China amid an agreement to resolve the border dispute. 

The decision to reset the strained ties was taken during the formal talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping, who met for the first time for official-level discussions in October 2024 – their first since 2019 – in Kazan, Russia on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit.