President Xi Jinping left Beijing early Tuesday morning for Turkmenistan, the first stop of his four-nation visit to Central Asia.

From Sept. 3 to 13, Xi will pay state visits to Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, at the invitation of Turkmenian President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Uzbek President Islam Karimov and Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambaev.

He is also scheduled to attend the eighth Leaders' Summit of the Group of Twenty (G20), scheduled in St Petersburg from Sept 5 to 6, as well as the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, on Sept 13.

During the SCO meeting, leaders will discuss intra-area cooperation and major global and regional issues. The summit will issue a declaration and pass a long-term cooperation outline in the form of a resolution, said Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Cheng Guoping at a press briefing Tuesday.

The upcoming tour of Central Asia will be Xi's third international trip this year, and the first one to this neighboring region since he took office this March.

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