On Sept. 15, 2013, Foreign Minister Wang Yi held talks with French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius. The two sides exchanged views on Syria and other issues.

Wang Yi said that China welcomes Russia and the U.S. to reach a framework agreement on Syria's chemical weapons issue. At the same time, we also firmly affirm the decision of the Syrian government to join the Chemical Weapons Convention. It relieves the touch-and-go situation in Syria, and also opens the prospect of solving Syria's chemical weapons problems through peaceful means. China hopes that the solution to the Syria issue, including destruction of chemical weapons, should be included within the UN framework as soon as possible, and be pushed forward, and the UN Security Council should play an important role for this purpose. At the same time, we are looking forward to that, under the support from the international community, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons can carry out related work with a neutral, objective, fair and professional attitude.

Wang Yi stressed that military means cannot solve the problem. Political solution is the only realistic way for the Syria issue, and should be pushed forward along with the process of destruction of chemical weapons. Wang Yi called on Syria to cease fire and stop violence immediately within its territory, creating necessary conditions for the destruction of chemical weapons to start and for the Second International Conference in Geneva to be held as soon as possible.

Laurent Fabius said that Russian-U.S. framework agreement is an important and positive progress. We hope that relevant parties seize the opportunity to speed up promoting a political solution. The UN Security Council should play a bigger role. France is willing to work with China to strengthen communications and coordination.

The two sides also had an in-depth exchange of views on China-France relations.