President Jiang Arrives in Dushanbe for State Visit

President Jiang Arrives in Dushanbe for State Visit

President Jiang Zemin arrived in Dushanbe Monday evening for a state visit at the invitation of Tajikistani President Emomali Rakhmonov.

Jiang, the first Chinese head of state to visit Tajikistan, was accorded a red-carpet welcome at the airport. Accompanied by Rakhmonov, Jiang inspected the guards of honor after a military band played the national anthems of China and Tajikistan.

In a written speech distributed at the airport, Jiang highly appraised the Sino-Tajik friendship particularly after the establishment of diplomatic ties eight years ago, saying "the deeply rooted tree of friendship was fruitful." He said that he believed the visit would inject new impetus to the further development of bilateral ties.

On the upcoming "Shanghai Five" summit, Jiang said China was ready to make continued efforts to push forward the development of "Shanghai Five" meeting process in a bid to safeguard regional peace and stability and promote common development and prosperity.

The "Shanghai Five" process, which involves the heads of states from China, Tajikistan, Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, was started in Shanghai, China, in April 1996, when the heads of states from the five countries held their first summit meeting.

During his stay in Dushanbe, Jiang will hold formal talks with Rakhmonov Tuesday morning and the two countries will sign a series of documents on bilateral cooperation, according to officials of the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

Jiang's entourage who arrived here boarding the same special plane included Vice Premier Qian Qichen, Minister in charge of the State Development and Planning Commission Zeng Peiyan, Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation Shi Guangsheng, and other senior officials.

Tajikistan is the first-leg of Jiang's five-day, two-nation visit. He is scheduled to attend the annual "Shanghai Five" Summit on July 5. The multilateral summit gained its name from the first five-nation meeting in Shanghai, China, in 1996.

After the summit, Jiang will go to Turkmenistan for a state visit as the guest of his Turkmenistani counterpart Saparmurad Niyazov.

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