Decks cleared for Narayanan's visit to China

BEIJING, MAY 14 Diplomatic and logistic activities are on here to make the upcoming State visit of the President, Mr.K.R. Narayanan a resounding success, officials said.

An advance team of senior Indian officials have already visited Beijing and two other Chinese cities to finalise arrangements for the week-long visit.The Indian embassy officials are also busy finalising the programmes of the visit with their Chinese counterparts.

Both sides are working hard to make Mr.Narayanan's visit to China a grand success, official sources said here. He would be arriving here on May 28.

``The Chinese Government attaches great importance and is looking forward to the upcoming State visit by the Indian President'', a senior Chinese Foreign Ministry official said.

``We consider the upcoming visit of Mr. Narayanan as a big event'', a ruling Communist Party official said. Describing Mr. Narayanan as a friend of China,Mr.Dai Bingguo, member of the central committee of the Communist Party of China (Cpc) and Minister for International Department, praised the Indian President's contributions to promoting Sino-Indian relations.

``We admire and respect him. We hope and are confident that Mr.Narayanan's upcoming visit will make great contributions to the improvement and development of State-to-State relations between our two countries,'' he said.

Though no breakthroughs on the thorny issues affecting India- China relations were expected, the Presidential visit, coming after a gap of eight years, was expected to provide conducive atmosphere for the steady growth of bilateral ties, official sources said. Meanwhile, commenting on the recently concluded 12Th round of JWG in New Delhi, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said the two sides have agreed to make efforts to maintain the peace and tranquillity in the border region.

The talks were held in a friendly, frank and sincere atmosphere, the Ministry said on Chinese Vice Foreign Minister, Mr.Yang Wenchangs talks with the Indian Foreign Secretary,Mr. Lalit Mansingh and Mr.Yang's meeting with the External Affairs Minister,Mr.Jaswant Singh.

- PTI

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Section  : International
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