NEW DELHI. March 2 (Interfax) - Russia and China have big plans for the development of bilateral relations, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
"We have rather far-reaching plans for the development of bilateral relations and, of course, a substantive foreign political agenda, considering the role of Russia and China as a factor stabilizing the system of international relations," Lavrov said at the first in-person meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang on the sidelines of the G20 ministerial conference.
Lavrov once again congratulated Qin on his appointment as the Chinese foreign minister and expressed confidence that Qin would ensure "the succession and progress in every area agreed upon by the leaders, including trade, economic and cultural relations."
The Russian Foreign Ministry said after the meeting that the sides "had discussed the current Ukraine situation, including the Chinese Foreign Ministry's position on a political settlement of the Ukrainian crisis, and a number of topical international issues."
The Russian and Chinese foreign ministers also "had a substantive, frank exchange of views on key aspects of the G20 activity and bilateral interaction in this format," the ministry said on its website.
"They underlined the importance of closer foreign political coordination between Moscow and Beijing on various international platforms, including the United Nations, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, BRICS, APEC and other formats," the ministry said.
The ministers also "stated a high degree of proximity and concurrence of their stances on every matter discussed," it said.
"They expressed the unanimous rejection of the attempts at interfering in internal affairs of other countries, imposing unilateral approaches by blackmail and threats, and hindering democratization of international relations. The importance of continuing regular, including in-person, contacts for the sake of further deepening of foreign political interaction between the two countries was reaffirmed," the ministry said.