China's top legislator calls for closer inter-parliamentary exchanges with Russia

China and Russia should strengthen cooperation and exchanges between their legislative bodies so as to promote the two countries' relations, China's top legislator Zhang Dejiang said here on Tuesday.

Cooperation between the National People's Congress (NPC) of China and the Russian Federal Assembly has achieved fruitful results through regular exchanges over the past years, Zhang, chairman of the NPC's Standing Committee, said in an address to the first session of the cooperation committee of the two countries' legislative bodies.

The establishment of the cooperation committee provided a broad space for their in-depth, high-level cooperation, he added.

The two sides should further increase mutual support to lay a solid political foundation for the promotion of mutual strategic trust, and exchange their experiences more frequently to benefit the two countries' development and rejuvenation, he said.

Moreover, Zhang said, the two countries' legislative bodies should further boost pragmatic cooperation to provide a legal guarantee for win-win results.

He called for the promotion of an inter-generational friendship to strengthen the social basis for the development of China-Russia relations.

The NPC and the Russian Federal Assembly should also work more closely together in multilateral cooperation to create a sound external environment for common development, Zhang said.

Also on Tuesday, the Chinese top legislator held separate talks with Valentina Matvienko, chairwoman of Russia's Federation Council, and Sergei Naryshkin, speaker of the Russian State Duma.

During the talks, he urged the two countries' legislative bodies to boost local cooperation and youth and media exchanges, so as to accelerate the development of relations between the two countries.

On the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the victory of the World Anti-Fascist War, Zhang said the NPC and the Russian Federal Assembly should actively participate in relevant activities in the two countries and jointly safeguard the fruit of victory of World War II and international justice.

Matvienko and Naryshkin expressed their willingness to work with the NPC to create new forms of cooperation and enrich its content, in a bid to make more contributions to Russia-China friendly cooperation.

They said Russia hopes that the two countries will continue to strengthen cooperation within the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS, a thriving cooperation mechanism that groups the world's five leading emerging economies -- Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

Russia and China should maintain close communication and coordination, jointly cope with challenges, and safeguard world peace, stability and development, they said. Endi