The agreement, announced by India’s foreign secretary, marks a major thaw four years after bloody clashes between soldiers on the border tanked bilateral relations.

India and China have arrived on a patrolling arrangement along their disputed frontier in the Himalayas and it can lead to disengagement and resolution of a conflict that began in 2020, Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said on Monday.

China and India agreed to allow each others’ troops to patrol the disputed border between the two countries, a significant step toward ending a four-year stalemate as leaders from both nuclear-armed nations possibly meet at a BRICS summit this week.