Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese Foreign Minister Tang
Jiaxuan on Saturday pledged to further the strategic partnership of
cooperation between the two countries.
At
a meeting in the Kremlin, Chinese foreign minister Tang Jiaxuan
told Putin that China will make unremitted efforts to develop
Chinese-Russian strategic partnership and continue consolidating
and strengthening bilateral cooperation with Russia, aiming at
substantiating the bilateral strategic partnership.
Tang said President Putin's upcoming visit to China on Dec. 1 to 3
is a big event in the Sino-Russian relations for the year and China
attaches great importance to the visit.
He
said one of the subjects of his current trip to Russia is to
prepare for the upcoming Beijing summit between presidents of the
two countries, adding that Chinese President Jiang Zemin and
General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party
of China (CPC) Hu Jintao are expecting to have a deep exchange of
views with Putin on the bilateral ties and current international
situation.
Putin expressed his congratulations on the smooth convocation of
the 16th CPC National Congress.
He
said he hopes to expand Russian-Chinese cooperation in the fields
of energy, transport and aviation.
Tang said the Chinese government and people extended condolences to
relatives of victims of last month's hostage-taking crisis in
Moscow and strongly condemn terrorist acts.
He
expressed China's readiness to further strengthen cooperation with
Russia in combating terrorism.
(Xinhua News Agency November 24, 2002)