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Israel and China to sign new bilateral treaties
AFP
BEIJING
Petroleumworld.com 01 10 07Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was due to sign several bilateral treaties at a meeting with China's Premier Wen Jiabao on Wednesday on the second day of his three-day visit to Beijing.
Before the meeting and the official signing ceremony at the Great Hall of the People, Olmert will visit the Great Wall outside the Chinese capital.
Olmert's visit -- his second in less than three years but the first since taking office a year ago -- was expected to focus on bilateral ties between the two countries.
It was also expected to look at the thorny question of Iran's controversial nuclear programme, which Israel has branded in the past as an existential threat.
The Jewish state, the Middle East's sole if undeclared nuclear power, considers the Islamic republic its arch foe following repeated calls by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for Israel to be wiped off the map.
According to officials, Olmert does not expect to encounter much enthusiasm in Beijing for Israel's call to slap heavy sanctions on Iran, one of China's major suppliers of the oil and gas needed to feed its fast-growing economy.
"But we must prepare for the next round of sanctions against Iran in the coming months," one official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Even though it did not oppose a Security Council resolution on December 23 slapping light sanctions on Iran, "China, too, has no interest in seeing a nuclear Iran," he said.
The premier will meet President Hu Jintao on Thursday.
On Tuesday, Olmert visited a joint Israeli-Chinese experimental dairy farm on the outskirts of Beijing and later toured the site of the Olympic village.
A picture of Olmert dressed in a white jacket while attempting to milk a cow on the dairy farm appeared in local media.
AFP 09 2357 GMT 01 07
Copyright© 2001 AFP.All Rights Reserved.
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