China underlined its determination to deepen the "all weather relations" with its key ally Pakistan and said on Sunday that Islamabad was in effective control of the situation in the country amid rise in Islamist militancy.
The government of Pakistan was in effective control of the situation, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said in response to a question on the volatile situation in the country as well as in neighbouring Afghanistan.
Interacting with mediapersons, he stressed that the two allies will continue to expand practical means of cooperation.
On Afghanistan, Yang said China would continue to extend non-military support to Kabul to rebuild the war ravaged country with focus on building hospitals, water conservancy and other welfare projects.
He said the prevailing impression among several countries was that the military means alone will not solve the problems in Afghanistan and the UN Security Council should play more roles in shaping events in that country, he said.
On the friction between US and China, Yang said Washington should respect China's core interests and major concerns by taking credible steps to end the tension.
Taking exception to recent US arms sales to Taiwan and President Barrack Obama's meeting with the Dalai Lama, he said "the United States should properly handle relevant sensitive issues and work with the Chinese side to return the China-US relationship to the track of stable development".
He said that the China-US relationship had a good start after President Obama took office last year.
However, the US arms sales to Taiwan and US leaders' meeting with the Dalai Lama "caused a serious disturbance to the China-US ties and posed difficulty to the cooperation between the two countries," he said.
"Such a situation is not in the interest of either side, and the responsibility for the difficulty in Sino-US relations does not lie with China," he said.
Yang said the China-Russia relation is one of the priorities of China's diplomacy and that there is much potential in the practical cooperation and development for both countries.
China and Russia signed a series of agreements on energy, oil, natural gas, coal, power, nuclear and high-speed railways last year, Yang said.
On the issue of China-Russia oil pipeline, he said it is likely to be completed by the end of this year and the project will enter into operation in 2011, Yang said.
On many major international and regional issues, China and Russia share same or similar views and have close communications, Yang said.
