President Jiang Zemin, who is attending the summit meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), met with Russian President Putin in St. Petersburg.

Jiang first said that he is very glad to meet President Putin again in Putin's hometown. Jiang said that under the leadership of President Putin, great and positive changes have taken place in Russia in the past two years. In a stable society, Russia's economy has advanced continuously and people's living standard has improved, which is to the pleasure of the Chinese side.

On the bilateral relations, Jiang said that since its establishment, the strategic partnership between China and Russia has withstood the test of international vicissitudes and gone forward stably. There have been increasingly frequent exchanges between top leaders of the two sides. The heads of state of the two countries will hold two meetings in the second half of this year. The close contacts between top leaders of the two countries have always been a driving force behind the development of the bilateral relations. Developing and deepening the good-neighborly and mutually beneficial cooperation relations between China and Russia is in the common interests of both countries and conforms to the historical trend. Jiang said that the top priority facing the two countries now is to implement the Sino-Russian Good-Neighborly Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation. The two countries should conduct cooperation in the economic and trade areas while strengthening mutual trust politically.

Putin felt quite pleased to meet President Jiang at his hometown St. Petersburg. He said that this meeting with Jiang will help strengthen the strategic partnership between the two countries, which is also helpful to maintaining world peace. He said that sharing many common grounds, Russia and China know each other's history and culture very well and are the biggest neighbor to each other. Therefore, the two countries have every reason and condition to keep good-neighborly relations and have mutually beneficial cooperation.

The Russian president said the two countries will soon celebrate the first anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Good-neighborly and Friendly Cooperation between Russia and China. It has been proven that the signing of the treaty is a fairly timely and correct choice of the two countries. He said the two sides should strengthen cooperation in various areas in accordance with the principles and spirit of the treaty.

On the SCO, Jiang said that the initiation and establishment of the SCO is a major decision made by six countries including China and Russia after appraising the then situation. It is a correct and far-sighted choice of its six member countries, as has been proven by the development of international situation over the past year. The establishment of the SCO is of great vitality as it is in accordance with the interests of the member countries and the actual needs of the region. He is fully confident of the future of the organization.

Putin agreed with Jiang's remarks on the SCO, and said he hopes to work with Jiang and other leaders of the SCO to make the upcoming summit meeting in St. Petersburg a satisfactory success and promote the construction and development of the SCO.

In the meeting, Jiang also exchanged opinions on the current regional and international situation with Putin. Jiang said that Russia is an important force in today's international arena. A better relationship between Russia and the United States, and that between Russia and Europe, characterized with more dialogue and cooperation between them, will be more conducive to regional and world peace, security and stability.