Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a rare and "candid" meeting to ease tensions along their disputed frontier, Beijing said on Friday.

China and India have long been at loggerheads over their disputed border in the Himalayas, and relations deteriorated even further after dozens of soldiers were killed in a 2020 border clash.

Thursday's meeting on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Johannesburg was the first time Modi brought up the issue directly with Xi.

"President Xi stressed that improving China-India relations serves the common interests of the two countries and peoples," a spokesperson for China's Foreign Ministry said on Friday.

"The two sides should bear in mind the overall interests of their bilateral relations and handle properly the border issue so as to jointly safeguard peace."

What did Modi say?

India's Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra said that Modi highlighted unresolved issues along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) that divides India's Himalayan region of Ladakh from Chinese territory.

"Modi underlined that the maintenance of peace and tranquility in the border areas, and observing and respecting the LAC are essential for the normalization of the India-China relationship," Kwatra told reporters Thursday.

Beijing referred to the discussion as a "candid and in-depth exchange of views."

India and China have held numerous lower-level discussions to resolve the dispute along the 3,488-kilometer (2,167-mile) frontier.

Before the two leaders traveled to Johannesburg, military commanders from both sides held five days of talks along the frontier. Although they described the talks as positive, there has been no word of a pullback of troops on the ground.

Separately, China also claims all of India's northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, which it considers to be part of Tibet.

zc/jcg (AFP, Reuters, AP)