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.

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.

An Indian official says India and China have agreed to a pact on military patrols along their disputed border in the Himalayas.