Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing confirmed that Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived here on Tuesday morning, kicking off a two-day state visit to China at the invitation of Chinese President Hu Jintao.

During the visit, Hu will hold talks and exchange views with Putin on further increasing China-Russia strategic and cooperative partnership as well as major international and regional issues of common concern. The two heads of state will also attend the opening ceremony of the Year of Russia and a Sino-Russian business summit forum.

Wu Bangguo, Chairman of the Standing Committee of China's National People's Congress, and Premier Wen Jiabao will also meet with Putin respectively. China and Russia will sign a series of documents on bilateral cooperation.

Li said the visit is expected to boost the all-round development of the Sino-Russian Strategic Partnership of Cooperation, and facilitate world peace, stability and development.

No major obstacles in Sino-Russia relations

In addition, Li said Monday that there are no major problems and obstacles between China and Russia after the two countries settled their border disputes last year following four decades of negotiations.

"The two countries set up high-level meeting mechanism and solved the border issue successfully. There are no major problems and obstacles in their bilateral relations," said Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing.

Li made the remarks in a written interview with the Russian media, which was posted on the ministry's official website on Monday.

"China-Russia relations have developed rapidly and the two countries have increased their mutual understanding," said Li.

On the events of the Year of Russia scheduled for 2006 and the Year of China for 2007, Li said the "National Year" event is the first of its kind in the history of China-Russia relations and is the major step toward implementing their treaty of neighborly friendship.

Chinese and Russian presidents will jointly attend the opening ceremony of the Year of Russia during Russian President Vladimir Putin's upcoming state visit to China from March 21 to 22.

Li hailed China-Russia trade cooperation, saying the bilateral trade volume hit 29.1 billion U.S. dollars in 2005, up 37.1 percent year on year. The good momentum is expected to lay a solidfoundation to meet the goal 60 to 80 billion dollars in trade by 2010.

In response to a question on bilateral military cooperation, Lisaid China and Russia, share a 4,300-km-long border and will develop long-term and stable neighborly friendship and mutually-beneficial cooperation.

Both China and Russia follow the principle of non-alignment, non-antagonism and not targeting a third country, which benefit peace, security and stability in the region and the world at large, Li said.

China hopes to enhance co-op with Russia on Middle East issue

During Monday's written interview with the Russian press, Li said China hopes to further cooperate with Russia in promoting peace in the Middle East.

"China and Russia are close on the Middle East issue and have kept good cooperation and coordination. China hopes to further cooperate with Russia in promoting peace and stability in the Middle East," Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing said in the interview.

When asked to comment on Russia's dialogue with the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), Li said Russia had tried to persuade Hamas to transform itself into a political party, follow the path of peace and dialogue, recognize Israel and accept the agreements already reached.

"China backs Russia's diplomatic efforts in that regard," Li said.

The Chinese Foreign Minister also urged Palestine and Israel to abide by the relevant UN resolutions and the principle of "land for peace" and resolve disputes through negotiation to achieve peaceful co-existence.

China supports energy co-op with Russia

Futhermore, Li Zhaoxing said that China supports Chinese companies to conduct energy cooperation with Russian enterprises.

"The Chinese government supports Chinese companies to cooperate with Russian enterprises through various ways including investment to jointly explore the oil and gas field in Russia's eastern Siberia and far east," Li said in the interview.

Li said the presidents of the two countries and the two governments have reached consensus, on many occasions, to support enterprises of both countries to conduct cooperation on the exploration.

He said energy cooperation is an important cooperative field between China and Russia and the two countries are highly complementary in the field.

The Chinese Foreign Minister said the energy cooperation between the two countries are currently developing positively after years of efforts. He said he hoped the two countries would continue the cooperation with the principle of mutual benefit and trust to achieve a win-win result.

On global energy safety and the upcoming G8 summit in Russia, Li said China supports Russia's proposal of listing the energy safety issue as one of the key topics of the summit.

Li said China supports Russia to play an important role in promoting international cooperation in the field of energy.

He also expressed his hope that all the participants of the summit would play constructive role in promoting global energy safety and boost sustainable development. Enditem