BEIJING, June 23: China and India agreed on Monday on the need for more trust and cooperation to give new impetus to often-frosty bilateral ties which Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said had once been at a “dead-end”.

Mr Vajpayee, the first Indian leader to visit China in a decade, held discussions with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and both sides pledged closer relations.

“ ... I have brought from India ties of peace, friendship, trust and cooperation,” he said at the Great Hall of the People.

“India attaches great importance to having cooperative relations with China. I hope my trip to China will strengthen trust and understanding between the two countries, peoples and governments and further promote our broad cooperation.”

Mr Wen said he “fully agrees” on the need for bolstering ties and was optimistic that Mr Vajpayee’s groundbreaking visit would reap dividends.

“I believe that your current visit will certainly yield a major impact on the further development of our relationship in the future,” he said.

The Indian premier has made clear though that much work still needs to be done to improve a relationship tainted by a long-running border dispute still unsolved despite 15 rounds of talks.

But Mr Vajpayee resolved to put the past behind them.

Where once the two sides were in a “state of estrangement”, they had now “emerged decisively from this dead-end of mistrust already a few decades ago”.

“We know where we have come from. Let us better understand each other as we are today and comprehend where we can go together in the future,” said Vajpayee, who abruptly cut short a visit to Beijing as foreign minister in 1979 when China invaded Vietnam.

The Chinese prime minister appeared equally bouyant.

“With identical or similar views on many significant international issues, the two countries’ need for coordination and cooperation is increasing,” he said, according to the official Xinhua news agency.—AFP