On June 18, 2006, Premier Wen Jiabao of the State Council met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo. Both sides held talks in a cordial and friendly atmosphere.

Wen gave high credit to bilateral relations. He said that he chose Egypt as the first leg of his African tour as the establishment of diplomatic ties between Egypt and the New China 50 years ago helped launch Sino-Arab and Sino-African diplomatic ties and thus played a unique role in promoting Sino-Arab and Sino-African friendship and cooperation. Over the past 50 years, Sino-Egyptian traditional friendship has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the two peoples with mutually beneficial cooperation growing and bilateral strategic relations enlarging continuously. Thanks to mutual respect, mutual trust, mutual assistance, and mutual promotion, China-Egypt ties have developed further. He expressed belief that with support of President Mubarak, bilateral ties will achieve more rapid and better development.

Wen pointed out that China and Egypt, both ancient civilizations, have had identical or similar views on many major international issues, as well as common targets and ideas in terms of safeguarding state sovereignty, developing national economy and pushing forward democratic international relations. It is imperative for the two countries to keep closer their cooperation, with a view to development of the two countries and safeguarding world peace. In particular, under the current international situation featuring pursuit of peace, cooperation and development, China and Egypt should join hands to deal with challenges, which conforms to the fundamental interest of the two countries and their people and is of great significance to strengthening South-South relations, promoting dialogue among civilizations and establishing a harmonious world.

Wen emphasized that deepening Sino-Egyptian strategic and cooperative relations is the goal of China's policy toward Egypt. He fully exchanged views with Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazef on bilateral relations yesterday and reached with him broad consensus. The implementation outline for deepening strategic and cooperative relations between China and Egypt, signed by the two Prime Ministers, is another programmatic document in the history of bilateral ties and will certainly advance bilateral pragmatic cooperation in all areas and bring benefits to the two peoples.

Mubarak said that he has maintained close ties with generations of the Chinese leadership and witnessed the steady growth of bilateral friendly relations. He was delighted to see that areas of bilateral cooperation have been expanded. The two countries are good brothers and the Egyptian people are grateful for China's long-standing disinterested support and assistance. He indicated that Wen's visit to Egypt has scored positive achievements and in particular, the implementation outline for deepening strategic and cooperative relations signed by both sides is of significance to the future growth of bilateral ties. He was looking forward to visiting China again within this year and attending the summit of China-Africa Cooperation Forum.

The two leaders also exchanged in-depth views on current major regional and international issues. Wen said that most of hot-spot issues in the world today have arisen from the Middle East, while Egypt is in the center of this region. China, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, is ready to strengthen consultation and coordination with Egypt and jointly commit to safeguarding regional peace, security and stability.

He said that China, which does not have self-interest in the Palestinian-Israeli issue, supports the Middle East peace process and the roadmap peace plan and stands for solving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict based on relevant UN resolutions and the land-for-peace principle and through dialogue and political negotiations to seek a two-state solution and enable the Palestinians and Israelis to live in peace. China sincerely hopes that a new Palestinian government and a new Israeli government could proceed from the aspiration and basic interests of the people to resume peace talks at an early date.

On the Iranian nuclear issue, he reaffirmed that China supports an international nuclear non-proliferation system, opposes proliferation of nuclear weapons and stands for peacefully solving the Iranian nuclear issue through diplomacy and negotiations. China hopes that parties concerned could be able to adopt a constructive attitude and show greater flexibility in order to resume talks as soon as possible. Mubarak noted that Egypt does not want to see that the Iranian nuclear issue would complicate the regional situation, and Egypt does hope to see that such an issue would be properly settled through negotiations.

On Sudan's Darfur issue, the Chinese Premier said that China pays close attention to the situation there, supports Sudan's peace process and a peace accord recently signed and is willing to work with the international community to seek comprehensive peace and stability in Sudan and achieve prosperity for the Sudanese people at an early date.