Leaders hail progress made in bilateral ties
( 2001-09-15 01:25 ) (1 )

China and Kazakhstan announced a joint communique on Friday praising bilateral ties and celebrating the resolution of historic border disputes.

Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji and Kazakhstan President Nursultan Abishevich Nazarbayev revealed the document on Friday after their meeting. Zhu and Kazakhstan counterpart Kasymzhomart Kemelevich Tokayev signed the document on Wednesday in Kazakhstan capital Astana.

Both sides promised in the communique to finalize the borderlines quickly, too.

The nations also agree to establish a committee for jointly using and protecting rivers that cross the border and to discuss the use of cross-border water resources.

International terrorism also made the document, with the sides agreeing that such acts are inhumane and must be stopped. In addition, ethnic separatism, religious extremism, organized crime, illegal trafficking of drugs and illegal immigration have posed serious threats to security and stability of Central Asia. Fighting this scourge within the framework of the Shanghai Co-operation Organization, of which both belong, is a means of ensuring world peace, it said. Both will actively push for the establishment of an anti-terrorism centre in Bishkek of Kyrgyzstan.

China and Kazakhstan also said they will guarantee the smooth implementation of petroleum and natural gas projects and continue to study the construction of an oil pipeline between the two countries.

Efforts will be made to raise the capacity of cross-border freight, the communique says.

The rights of each's enterprises and business people in the other's territory will be upheld and both better conditions for enterprises and business people will be created.

Kazakhstan reiterated that there is only one China, the People's Republic of China is the sole legitimate government of the entire country and that Taiwan is an inseparable part of Chinese territory. Kazakhstan vowed never to establish official ties of any form with Taiwan.

Both sides believe that the United Nations is the most representative and authoritative inter-government organization composed of sovereign states and opposes any interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state by any other state.

Both sides hold that the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972 is the cornerstone of global strategic stability and world security, and they stress that the resolution adopted at the UN congress to maintain and abide by the treaty is critical.