Tuesday, February 1 2005 16:53 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Beijing: China today (Feb 1, 2005) welcomed the resurgence in Sino-Indian relations and expressed its willingness to forge stable and sustained bilateral ties.

"I would like to reiterate that the Chinese side stands ready to work with the Indian side to promote the good neighbourly mutually beneficial cooperation and also push forward the sound, stable and sustained development between the two countries," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan said.

Kong said this while welcoming the recent remarks of External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh and Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee at the seventh East Asian Security Conference last week on India-China relations.

"They have spoken highly of Sino-Indian relations which we appreciate and welcome," Kong told reporters at a bi-weekly news conference.

"As we have said, in recent years, Sino-Indian relations have maintained a sound momentum of stable development and our bilateral relations have reached a new stage of development," he said.

"Not long ago, the two countries successfully held the first strategic dialogue," he said while pointing out to the January 24 meeting held in New Delhi.