Afghan Foreign Ministry on Thursday "strongly" denied that China has supplied weapons to Taliban militants in Afghanistan.

There is no evidence that China has provided weapons for the Taliban, the ministry said in a statement.

The Afghan government strongly rejects some media reports about that and regarded the reports as a "rumor," it added.

The statement said Afghanistan and China have not faced any problems in history, and bilateral ties are at the best level now.

The Afghan government is completely certain that security and stability in Afghanistan is beneficial to the peoples of the two countries, it said.

Recently, some Western media alleged some Chinese weapons such as surface-to-air missiles, anti-aircraft guns have fallen into the hands of Taliban militants, posing a severe threat to international troops deployed in Afghanistan.

During a press conference held on Tuesday in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said the allegation was "groundless."

She said China always takes a prudent and responsible attitude toward arms exports and imposes strict control over such exports according to China's international obligations and domestic laws and regulations.

Jiang said China exports much less weapons to other countries in terms of both quality and quantity when compared with what some developed countries do, and China requires that importing countries must see to it that no arms exports from China be transferred to a third party.

(Xinhua News Agency September 7 2007)