FM: Country willing to enhance ties with India
By Qin Yuding (China Daily)
Updated: 2005-02-02 06:00

China has hailed positive remarks made by Indian officials at the Seventh Asian Security Conference, which spoke highly of Sino-Indian relations, Foreign Ministry spokes-man Kong Quan said yesterday in Beijing.

He said Sino-Indian ties have maintained stable development in recent years and have entered into a new stage of full development.

"China is willing to join hands with India in efforts to push forward a friendly cooperative bilateral relationship on the base of mutual benefit," he said.

The Indian External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh last Thursday said that both India and China were aware that trust and co-operation between them "are part of the most crucial elements that make our region and Asia a vibrant and energetic fulcrum for growth." He was inaugurating the conference in New Delhi. China and India held their first strategic dialogue successfully on January 24 there.

Six-party talks discussed

Kong Quan also said China has proposed holding working-level talks to pave the way for early resumption of six-party talks on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) nuclear issue.

He said that all parties could elaborate on their positions and solve their differences.

"These kind of working group meetings are conducive to the restarting of the talks and gaining achievement," he said.

He said China is willing to exert its utmost efforts to promote anything that is helpful for the early resumption of the talks.

Kong said China has always been engaged in "very close contacts with all parties concerned" and hoped that a "suitable atmosphere and conditions" would be created to restart the negotiations.

On Monday, newly appointed US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reaffirmed the United States' desire to restart talks in telephone conversations with Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing.

Kong said this was the first official phone call contact between the senior officials in charge of foreign affairs in the two countries after Rice's appointment.

China has hosted three rounds of the talks which involve China, the DPRK, the United States, the Republic of Korea, Russia and Japan.

The talks have been stalled since the third round held in Beijing in June last year.

Tang's Moscow visit

Kong also announced that State Councillor Tang Jiaxuan left Beijing yesterday morning for a four-day visit to Moscow.

Kong said Tang was scheduled to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov and other senior officials, with the six-party talks likely to be discussed.

Closure of Dalai Lama's office

China has welcomed Nepal's decision to close offices in Kathmandu associated with the Dalai Lama.

"We believe this is a just decision made by the Nepalese Government in accordance with its sovereignty and maintaining its sovereignty," Kong Quan said yesterday at the press conference.

It was reported that the Nepalese Government closed the Dalai Lama's representative office last week.

(China Daily 02/02/2005 page2)

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