Hu's visit to Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan to boost bilateral ties
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Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan next week will boost bilateral ties and mutually beneficial cooperation, a senior Chinese diplomat said Thursday.
Hu will make the working visits from Dec. 12 to 14, during which he will hold talks with his Kazak counterpart Nursultan Nazarbayev and Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov on bilateral ties and international and regional issues of common concern, said Deputy Foreign Minister Wang Guangya at a press briefing.
"As a good neighbor and partner, China is glad to witness the remarkable achievements made by the Central Asian states, including Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, since their independence," Wang said.
He hailed the stable situation in Central Asia, applauded the ongoing political and economic reform, improved living standards and expanding external relations of those states.
"China will enhance cooperation with Central Asian states and make further contributions to peace and development in the region," he said.
Wang said there is a good momentum of fast and sound development in relations since China and Kazakhstan established diplomatic ties in 1992.
"Since then, China and Kazakhstan have enhanced traditional friendship and expanded substantial cooperation," he said, adding that the two countries established a strategic partnership in 2005.
China and Kazakhstan had maintained frequent high-level visits and deepened political mutual trust, he said.
Those high-level visits include President Nazarbayev's visit to China in 2008, during which he attended the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games and held talks with Hu, and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's visit to Kazakhstan last year.
Nazarbayev visited China again last April and Kazak Prime Minister Karim Massimov came to Beijing in October for a government heads' meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
The fifth meeting of the China-Kazakhstan Cooperative Commission, co-chaired by Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan and Kazakhstan's First Deputy Prime Minister Umirzak Shukeev, was held last week in Beijing.
Top Chinese legislator Wu Bangguo met with Shukeev on the sidelines of the meeting, Wang said.
"We are neighbors and share reciprocal advantages, which fuel our cooperation in such fields as trade, economy, investment, communication, energy, society and culture," Wang said.
He hailed the positive progress in the construction of an international cooperation center at the border city of Horgos, an electrolytic aluminum factory in Kazakhstan and the China-Kazakhstan oil pipeline.
China and Kazakhstan also carried out effective cooperation in the strike against the "three evil forces" of separatism, extremism and terrorism, and within the framework of the SCO and the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-building Measures in Asia (CICA), he said.
Wang hailed the expanding cooperation between China and Turkmenistan in such fields as politics, trade, economy, energy, communication, and culture.
He highlighted President Berdymukhamedov's visit to China in July 2007, Hu's visit to the Central Asian state in August 2008 and Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang's visit to Turkmenistan in June this year.
Despite the global financial crisis, China-Turkmenistan trade volume surged by 135 percent year on year to 830 million U.S. dollars in 2008 and 874 million dollars in the first 10 months of 2009, up 38 percent year on year, Wang said.
China and Turkmenistan also cooperated in the United Nations, Wang said.
"China will, with the principle of friendly cooperation, strive to promote bilateral ties," Wang said.
During the visit, the heads of state will review bilateral cooperation and lay out the blueprint for future cooperation, he said.
Hu and his counterparts from Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan will also attend a ceremony to mark the completion of a 1,833-km trans-Asia gas pipeline that stretches from Turkmenistan to China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, crossing Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
"Such a project played is a model of mutually beneficial cooperation between the four states, and displays our desire to bolster economic cooperation and realize common development," Wang said.
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