Chinese President Jiang Zemin said Tuesday that the United State should stop all spy flights in airspace of the Chinese coastal areas so as to prevent the recurrence of plane collision incident.

Jiang made the remarks while meeting with visiting Prime Minister Abdullah Bin Khalifa Al-Thani of the State of Qatar.

"We cannot understand why the United States often sent its planes to make surveillance flights in areas so close to China," he said.

"And this time, in violation of the international law and practice, the US plane bumped into our plane, invaded the Chinese territorial airspace and landed at our airport," he said.

He said the United States should stop such flights so as to be "conducive to the development of China-US relationship."

(Xinhua 04/03/2001)