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Putin says Russia, China maintain relations at 'unprecedentedly high level'

Russia backs China's plans aimed at the development of economic cooperation in the region and in the world, Putin said

© Alexander Druzhinin/Presidential press service/TASS

MOSCOW, April 26. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin believes his upcoming talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing in May will bolster an unprecedentedly high level of bilateral relations.

"Our next contacts with President Xi Jinping are scheduled for May 14-15, within the framework of an international conference organized by the Chinese leadership and aimed at the development of economic cooperation in the region and in the world," the president said as he met on Wednesday with Director of the General Office of the Communist Party of China Li Zhanshu.

He said Russia had from the start backed these plans, all the more as "they correlate with Russia’s plans for developing cooperation and integration processes in the post-Soviet space".

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"I think this joint work will keep up this unprecedentedly high level of Russian-Chinese relations that has developed in the recent years," Putin said, conveying best wishes to the Chinese president.

Li Zhanshu, for his part, thanked Putin for an opportunity to meet and conveyed greetings from the Chinese president. "He is ready to meet with you," Li Zhanshu said. He also noted that bilateral relations of strategic partnership "have acquired a mature, stable nature," achieving a very high level.

Li Zhanshu quoted Xi Jianping as saying that Russian-Chinese relations "enjoy the best period in the whole history of our relations, and can be rightly called an example of relations between great states".

"... our course, aimed at deepening and developing strategic partnership, will not change no matter what circumstances," Li Zhanshu quoted the Chinese leader as saying.

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