China, EU to push forward with new pact_时事politics

from l: china's premier wen jiabao, finland's prime minister matti vanhanen and european commission president jose manuel barroso were at the eu-china summit.  sept. 10 - china and the european union (eu) have agreed to launch talks on a new framework that governs their relations.

 

saturday's agreement came at a summit in finland, which currently holds the eu presidency.

 

china and the 25-nation eu, which are doing more business together than ever before, have long wanted to update the 20-year-old partnership and cooperation agreement.

 

eu-china trade is now worth more than 200 billion euros (us$254 billion) a year.

 

however, china had sought separate talks for business and political issues while the eu had insisted all issues should be considered in one, new partnership and cooperation agreement.

 

after the summit in the finnish capital, china and the eu said they would partially decouple business from a host of other issues and deal with it in a "relatively independent manner".

 

chinese premier wen jiabao said that sino-eu relations had entered a new stage but stressed that he was against linking human rights issues to trade.

 

china had again appealed for the arms embargo to be lifted.

 

"the chinese side reiterated its view that lifting the arms embargo would be conducive to the sound development of the eu-china relations and urged the eu to lift the arms embargo at an early date," said a joint statement released after the summit.

 

"the eu side recognised the importance of this issue and confirmed its willingness to carry forward work towards lifting the embargo", the statement added.

 

but on other issues, the two sides agreed to work together.

 

they expressed grave concern over the recent missile launches by north korea and called for the resumption of six-party talks.

 

they also urged iran to comply fully with the demand from the united nations that it stop enriching uranium.