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No immediate plans for Beijing-Moscow-Delhi axis: China

China has ruled out any immediate plans to forge a triangular alliance with India and Russia but called for moving in this direction "step-by-step".

"As far as I know, neither China nor Russia have any plans to forge such alliance. India also has no such plans," Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan said in Moscow. "Time for this has not yet come. We are for discussion on issues of mutual interests, but it is premature to set up any mechanism at the government level," he told reporters at the end of his visit.

Tang, however, called for moving in this direction "gradually and step-by-step."

"It would be desirable to begin with close contacts between the scholars and political scientists of the three countries," he said.

The proposal to form the Moscow-Delhi-Beijing triangle was first publicly mooted by former Russian prime minister Yevgeny Primakov during his New Delhi visit in December 1998.

Experts from Russia, India and China are scheduled to meet in Moscow in September to discuss a whole range of issues and evolve a common ground for further progress in trilateral ties.

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