diff --git a/src/backend/distributed/transaction/transaction_recovery.c b/src/backend/distributed/transaction/transaction_recovery.c
index f25823b30..c114a2ed3 100644
--- a/src/backend/distributed/transaction/transaction_recovery.c
+++ b/src/backend/distributed/transaction/transaction_recovery.c
@@ -347,7 +347,23 @@ RecoverWorkerTransactions(WorkerNode *workerNode)
 	}
 
 	systable_endscan(scanDescriptor);
-	table_close(pgDistTransaction, NoLock);
+
+	/*
+	 * Here we release the lock on pg_dist_transaction while closing it to avoid
+	 * deadlocks that might occur because of trying to acquire a lock on
+	 * pg_dist_authinfo while holding a lock on pg_dist_transaction. Such a scenario
+	 * can only cause a deadlock if another transaction is trying to acquire a strong
+	 * lock on pg_dist_transaction while holding a lock on pg_dist_authinfo. As of
+	 * today, we (implicitly) acquire a strong lock on pg_dist_transaction only when
+	 * upgrading Citus to 11.3-1 and this happens when creating a REPLICA IDENTITY on
+	 * pg_dist_transaction.
+	 *
+	 * And reglardless of the code-path we are in, it should be okay to release the
+	 * lock now because all we do after this point is to abort the prepared
+	 * transactions that are not part of an in-progress distributed transaction and
+	 * releasing the lock before doing so should be just fine.
+	 */
+	table_close(pgDistTransaction, RowExclusiveLock);
 
 	if (!recoveryFailed)
 	{
diff --git a/src/test/regress/expected/isolation_create_restore_point.out b/src/test/regress/expected/isolation_create_restore_point.out
index 3b1bdf9eb..dce15a35d 100644
--- a/src/test/regress/expected/isolation_create_restore_point.out
+++ b/src/test/regress/expected/isolation_create_restore_point.out
@@ -147,16 +147,15 @@ recover_prepared_transactions
 
 step s2-create-restore:
 	SELECT 1 FROM citus_create_restore_point('citus-test');
- <waiting ...>
-step s1-commit: 
-	COMMIT;
 
-step s2-create-restore: <... completed>
 ?column?
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
        1
 (1 row)
 
+step s1-commit:
+ COMMIT;
+
 
 starting permutation: s1-begin s1-drop s2-create-restore s1-commit
 create_reference_table
diff --git a/src/test/regress/spec/isolation_create_restore_point.spec b/src/test/regress/spec/isolation_create_restore_point.spec
index 2cdc66f85..c62a64a44 100644
--- a/src/test/regress/spec/isolation_create_restore_point.spec
+++ b/src/test/regress/spec/isolation_create_restore_point.spec
@@ -154,7 +154,10 @@ permutation "s1-begin" "s1-ddl" "s2-create-restore" "s1-commit"
 // verify that citus_create_restore_point is not blocked by concurrent COPY (only commit)
 permutation "s1-begin" "s1-copy" "s2-create-restore" "s1-commit"
 
-// verify that citus_create_restore_point is blocked by concurrent recover_prepared_transactions
+// verify that citus_create_restore_point is partially blocked by concurrent recover_prepared_transactions.
+// In the test output, we won't be able to explicitly observe this since
+// recover_prepared_transactions unblocks citus_create_restore_point after in-progress prepared transactions
+// are recovered.
 permutation "s1-begin" "s1-recover" "s2-create-restore" "s1-commit"
 
 // verify that citus_create_restore_point is blocked by concurrent DROP TABLE