MOSCOW. March 18 (Interfax-AVN) - Russian President Vladimir Putin has congratulated Hu Jintao on his election to the Chinese presidency.
In a telephone conversation on Tuesday, the two leaders shared the view that, leaning on a rich record of multifaceted cooperation, Russia and China will jointly raise bilateral cooperation to new levels, the Russian presidential press service told Interfax.
Putin and Hu discussed Russian-Chinese relations in both bilateral and multilateral formats. They exchanged opinions on preparations for the Chinese president's official visit to Russia and the next summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which will be held in Moscow in late May this year, just prior to formal international events timed to coincide with festivities celebrating the 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg.
In their discussion of world problems, Putin and Hu confirmed that the two countries have common approaches to and judgements about the crisis surrounding Iraq, the press service said.