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China for talks on Iran

Pallavi Aiyar

Active role in Africa benign and for mutual benefit

— PHOTO: AP

DIALOGUE FIRST: Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing holds up the United Nations Charter at a news conference in Beijing on Tuesday.

Beijing: Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing on Tuesday called on Iran to step up its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, and repeated China's stance that negotiation should be favoured over sanctions to urge Iran to rein in its nuclear programme. He was speaking at a press conference on the sidelines of the National People's Congress session here.

Mr. Li said Premier Wen Jiabao's visit to Tokyo in April, the first by a Chinese Premier in seven years, was an opportunity to mend ruptured ties but he also condemned the Japanese military's use of Asian women as sex slaves during World War II and urged Tokyo to take responsibility for its actions. His remarks were the first Chinese reaction to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's disavowal last week of responsibility for forcing Asian women into military brothels for Japanese troops during the war, on the grounds that there was "no evidence to prove there was coercion". Mr. Li also answered several questions relating to China's Africa policy. He defended China's increasingly active role as benign and aimed at mutual benefit.

China has been accused by western countries of using its policy of non-interference in the affairs of sovereign nations as an excuse to do business with corrupt and repressive regimes. Mr. Li rebutted these accusations saying non-interference was in fact a precondition for building a "harmonious world," the catch phrase that China uses to describe the aim of its foreign policy.

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