China willing to work with Russia to 'support each other's core interests: Xi

Beijing [China], September 15 (ANI): Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday said that Beijing is ready to work with Moscow in "extending strong support to each other on issues concerning their respective core interests."
According to Chinese media Xinhua News Agency, the Chinese Communist Party leader was speaking in a meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Uzbekistan's Samarkand today. This year, Samarkand is hosting the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Heads of State Summit.
Xi Jinping also said that China is also willing to deepen pragmatic cooperation in such areas including trade, agriculture and connectivity, as per the agency.
He called for both sides to strengthen coordination within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia, the BRICS and other multilateral mechanisms to promote solidarity and mutual trust among related parties, Xinhua reported.
Putin and Xi met for the first face-to-face talks since the start of the war in Ukraine.
The Chinese president also said China and Russia should expand pragmatic cooperation, safeguard the security and interests of the region, and preserve the common interests of developing countries and emerging market countries, Xinhua reported.
Uzbekistan is the current chair of SCO 2022 and India will assume the rotational annual presidency of the SCO at the end of the Samarkand Summit.
The SCO currently comprises eight Member States (China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan), four Observer States interested in acceding to full membership (Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran, and Mongolia) and six "Dialogue Partners" (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Turkey).
The Shanghai Five, formed in 1996, became the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in 2001 with the inclusion of Uzbekistan. With India and Pakistan entering the grouping in 2017 and the decision to admit Tehran as a full member in 2021, SCO became one of the largest multilateral organisations, accounting for nearly 30 per cent of the global GDP and 40 per cent of the world's population. (ANI)