Uzbek president says China is always Uzbekistan's reliable friend, partner

TASHKENT, July 28 (Xinhua) -- Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev said on Thursday that Uzbekistan values its high-level strategic communication and coordination with China, and China will always be Uzbekistan's reliable friend and partner.

During a meeting with visiting Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Mirziyoyev expressed heartfelt gratitude to China for its valuable help to Uzbekistan in promoting reform and opening up, poverty reduction and fighting the epidemic, and its strong support for Uzbekistan in maintaining social stability.

He said that Uzbekistan and China have upheld the principles of mutual trust and mutual assistance, mutual benefit and good-neighborly friendship, and have pushed bilateral relations to new levels.

"Uzbekistan values its high-level strategic communication and coordination with China and always regards China as a reliable partner. Uzbekistan will always be a reliable friend of China too," he said.

Wang said China is ready to work with Uzbekistan to take the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties as a new starting point, take the important consensus of the two heads of state as the guide, speed up the alignment of development strategies, increase mutual support, build on the past, upgrade the quality of China-Uzbekistan relations and bring more benefits to the two countries and two peoples.

"China and Uzbekistan are friendly neighbors and comprehensive strategic partners. The two countries are closely linked as lips and teeth and share weal and woe in security," Wang said. "China firmly supports Uzbekistan in pursuing its goal of building 'a new Uzbekistan', supports Uzbekistan in safeguarding national sovereignty and social stability, and opposes interference by any force in Uzbekistan's internal affairs."

Wang noted that China will always be Uzbekistan's reliable friend and partner.

"China is ready to push forward bilateral relations toward the direction of building a China-Uzbekistan community of shared future," said Wang. "China and Uzbekistan may accelerate the feasibility study of the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway project, further expand bilateral cooperation in economy, trade, investment, energy, agriculture, anti-epidemic, poverty reduction and digital economy, and explore the establishment of a sub-committee on poverty reduction cooperation within the framework of the Uzbekistan-China intergovernmental committee of cooperation."

Mirziyoyev said that he is willing to discuss with China the ways and connotations of building a community of shared future between Uzbekistan and China, looking forward to speeding up the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway and actively carrying out connectivity cooperation.

"Uzbekistan attaches great importance to the establishment of a sub-committee on poverty reduction cooperation and will assign high-level officials to lead relevant work," said Mirziyoyev.

Wang said that China is willing to continue to support Uzbekistan's Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) chairmanship to ensure the full success of this year's SCO summit and achieve greater development of the organization.

Also on Thursday, Wang held talks with Acting Foreign Minister of Uzbekistan Vladimir Norov.