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- MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian
Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said in an interview published on Monday that
relations with China were getting stronger and were an important stabilizing
factor in global politics.
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- "One may say without exaggeration that the strategic
partnership between Russia and China in the international arena has noticeably
strengthened," Ivanov told the Beijing newspaper Guangming Daily in
an interview released during a meeting of the Association of South East
Asian Nations in Singapore.
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- In the interview, issued by the Foreign Ministry in Moscow,
Ivanov said he was "convinced that a further widening of Russian-Chinese
cooperation will be an important stabilizing factor for the world".
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- "Our two states were the first in the world to declare
with full voice in a joint declaration the necessity of building a multi-polar
world and shaping a new world order," he said.
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- Both Russia and China often speak out against what they
describe as U.S. domination of world affairs.
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- Ivanov was to meet U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright on the sidelines of the conference in Singapore. Prime Minister
Sergei Stepashin is visiting the United States.
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- China and Russia have both opposed U.S.-led military
strikes against Yugoslavia and Iraq.
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- Russia has also sought to enlist India in forming a network
of powerful countries opposed to what it sees as unilateral action by the
West after the end of the Cold War tipped the global balance of power toward
Washington.
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- "In the foreign policy of our country, which is
as tightly connected to Asia as to Europe, the Asian direction is definitely
a permanent priority," Ivanov said.
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