US President Joe Biden is expected to meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping on the sidelines of a summit in San Francisco in November for “constructive” talks, the White House said Tuesday.

The comments came days after China’s foreign minister made a rare visit to Washington to pave the way for Xi to meet Biden at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.

China has not yet confirmed that Xi will come.

“We’re aiming to have a constructive conversation, meeting between the leaders in San Francisco in November,” Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said of the long-awaited talks.

“That’s what’s going to happen next month in November. We’re having a constructive conversation in San Francisco. I think I just confirmed it,” she added.

A senior US administration official told AFP: “There is an agreement in principle to meet in San Francisco in November. We are still working through important details needed to finalize those plans.”

Biden and Xi have had no contact since a meeting in Bali in November 2022.

Relations have been tense for years between the world’s top two economies as they vie for influence in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond, and as Beijing boosts cooperation with Russia in a bid to reduce US dominance.

After Beijing’s top diplomat Wang Yi met senior US officials last week, the White House said that the two sides were “working together towards a meeting.”

But the Chinese foreign minister said on Saturday that the road to talks was still “not smooth.”

Wang told a Washington event hosted by the Aspen Strategy Group that “both sides hope to stabilize and improve bilateral relations as soon as possible and agreed to work together toward a San Francisco summit between the two heads of state,” state news agency Xinhua reported.

“The path to San Francisco is not smooth and cannot be left to ‘autopilot’,” Wang warned, according to Xinhua.

The two sides must “eliminate interference, overcome obstacles, enhance consensus and accumulate results,” he said.

 Four people were detained for waving the Palestinian flag during the Pakistan-Bangladesh World Cup cricket match at Eden Gardens stadium on Tuesday, police said.

Two of them are residents of Jharkhand, while the other two are from Kolkata’s Ekbalpore and neighbouring Howrah, a senior police officer said.

“We have detained two of them for waving the Palestinian flag near gate number 6 and the other two at Block G1. We are trying to find out their motive,” the IPS officer told PTI.

The four were detained by law enforcers from Maidan police station and they were being questioned, he added.

“Policemen posted there at first could not understand what the protesters were up to. Then they waved the flag of Palestine and were detained. They, however, did not raise any slogan,” he elaborated.

Sources in the Kolkata Police said that the initial probe found out that the four people, who are in their mid-twenties, were protesting the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza and chose the international match for their stir.

The body of an intermediate student was found hanging at his home in Telangana’s Rangareddy district on Tuesday morning in a suspected case of suicide, police said.

Officials at the Meerpet Police Station said the student had resorted to the extreme step allegedly as he was unable to bear torture from the college authorities.

Sub-Inspector, Sudhakar at Meerpet Police Station said, “An intermediate college student named Vaibhav was found hanging at his home. The incident happened this morning. He is suspected to have committed suicide because he could not bear the torture from the college authorities.”

He said that the body of the student will be sent for a postmortem.

A letter allegedly written by the student states that the student was being pressurised by college authorities especially the Principal, Vice Principal and Junior Lecturer to get more marks.

In the letter, the student further urges his parents not to send his brother to the same college and appealed to college authorities not to put pressure on students.

A case has been registered and further investigations are underway.

Earlier this month, a fourth-year student, from Telangana’s Medak district was found hanging in the Indian Institute of Technology hostel room in West Bengal’s Kharaghpur.