President Jiang Zemin has urged the United States to stop reconnaissance flights in the airspace off China's coastal areas, to prevent recurrence of the April 1 air collision incident.

Only by doing so will it be favorable to the development of Sino-U.S. relations, Jiang said in a meeting visiting Prime Minister Abdullah Bin Khalifa Al-Thani of the State of Qatar here Tuesday.

The United States should bear full responsibility for the recent collision between Chinese and U.S. military planes in the airspace off the coast of China's Hainan Island, Jiang said. "We have sufficient evidence."

"It is the U.S. plane that violated flight rules by displaying dangerous moves, bumped into and destroyed our plane, and as a result the pilot is missing," Jiang said.

"What is the most precious is human life," he said. "I am deeply concerned about the safety of the pilot and has time and again given instructions to search for and rescue the pilot at all costs and with utmost efforts," he said.

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

"And this time, the U.S. plane bumped into our plane, invaded the Chinese territorial airspace and landed at our airport in violation of international laws and practices," he said.

(Xinhua 04/03/2001)