Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan on Saturday pledged to further the strategic partnership of cooperation between the two countries.

At a meeting in the Kremlin, Chinese foreign minister Tang Jiaxuan told Putin that China will make unremitted efforts to develop Chinese-Russian strategic partnership and continue consolidating and strengthening bilateral cooperation with Russia, aiming at substantiating the bilateral strategic partnership.

Tang said President Putin's upcoming visit to China on Dec. 1 to 3 is a big event in the Sino-Russian relations for the year and China attaches great importance to the visit.

He said one of the subjects of his current trip to Russia is to prepare for the upcoming Beijing summit between presidents of the two countries, adding that Chinese President Jiang Zemin and General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Hu Jintao are expecting to have a deep exchange of views with Putin on the bilateral ties and current international situation.

Putin expressed his congratulations on the smooth convocation of the 16th CPC National Congress.

He said he hopes to expand Russian-Chinese cooperation in the fields of energy, transport and aviation.

Tang said the Chinese government and people extended condolences to relatives of victims of last month's hostage-taking crisis in Moscow and strongly condemn terrorist acts.

He expressed China's readiness to further strengthen cooperation with Russia in combating terrorism.

(Xinhua News Agency November 24, 2002)