S Jaishankar and had had several rounds of talks with Wang Yi in Moscow and Dushanbe

New Delhi: China's foreign minister Wang Yi has reached Delhi -- the first high-level Chinese visit to India in more than two years, since the stand-off in Ladakh started. Sources said Wang Yi is expected to meet foreign minister S Jaishankar and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval on Friday.

The aim of Wang Yi's visit is to restart physical engagement and also invite Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a BRICS meeting to be hosted by Beijing later this year, news agency Press Trust of India has reported.

The suspense over the visit persisted till the last minute and there was no official confirmation of the visit even when the Chinese minister landed in Delhi. The landing could be confirmed only through tracking the flight path of his plane, which took off from Afghanistan.

India-China relations have taken a downturn as Chinese incursions became more frequent in Ladakh and led to the clash in Galwan Valley in which 20 Indian and several Chinese soldiers died.

Repeated rounds of military-level talks have led to de-escalation -- the two sides completed the disengagement process last year in the north and south banks of the Pangong lake and in the Gogra area. But there has been no return to the status quo that prevailed before 2020.