External affairs minister S. Jaishankar and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi held talks in Moscow on Thursday amid a prolonged border standoff in eastern Ladakh, PTI reported.

It is learnt that the two foreign ministers began their meeting a little after 8pm IST and the talks went on for at least two hours with the sole focus on bringing down tensions and ensuring disengagement of troops from the face-off sites.

There was no official word on the outcome of the parleys that took place on the sidelines of a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting amid hopes of a possible breakthrough in ending the four-month-long face-off.

“The focus of the talks was to lower the temperature between the two armies and begin disengagement of troops,” said a source.

It was the first face-to-face meeting between the two foreign ministers since the standoff erupted in May.

Earlier in the day, while the Indian Air Force was inducting Rafale fighters in Ambala, defence minister Rajnath Singh had said without mentioning China: “It sends a strong message to the world and specially to those who have dared to raise an eye at us.”