Relations between Russia and China have witnessed a considerable progress over the past few years, a spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.

Obvious success has been achieved in many fields of cooperation between Russia and China, and the two countries' top-level contacts have become regular, at least three times a year, the Itar-Tass news agency reported, citing spokesman Mikhail Kamynin.

The results yielded from two crucial summits -- a visit to China by Russian President Vladimir Putin in October 2004, and a visit by Chinese President Hu Jintao to Russia last summer -- "convincingly showed the parties' resolve to continue to develop their partnership and strategic interaction in all directions," Kamynin said.

"The ratification by our countries of the additional agreement on the state border on its eastern stretch forever closed the border issue which had complicated bilateral relations for many years," he added.

"For the first time, Russia and China had an opportunity to discuss any themes in their relations without looking back on inherited problems," Kamynin said. "No serious political problems between our countries have remained, capable of causing major difficulties in bilateral relations."

The settlement of the border issue allowed the two countries to focus on the task of fleshing out relations in all fields, he said.

The action plan on implementing provisions of a friendship and partnership treaty for 2005-2008 approved in October 2004 is most important in the task, Kamynin said.

Kamynin called for increasing contacts between the two countries' peoples and regions, contacts in the fields of business, culture, education and sports.

It will "help us strengthen the basis of political trust and strategic interaction, make the existing friendly and good-neighborly relations irreversible, and realize in practice the slogan -- Russia and China are friends forever and will never become enemies."

(Xinhua News Agency November 2, 2005)