Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing met Wednesday with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov before heading for talks with President Vladimir Putin, who will visit China in mid-October.

"Concerning the North Korean nuclear problem, China and Russia cooperated very effectively in the last six-way talks and both sides played a constructive role," Li said.

"We will continue to work together to resolve this problem through dialogue," he said.

Lavrov for his part said Russia and China "have no fundamental disagreements on the best way to resolve the problem on the Korean peninsula, and together we are working toward holding a meeting of the working group and the next round of six-way talks."

Russia, with its neutral status, is bidding for a mediator's role behind the scenes at six-way talks on North Korea's nuclear stand-off with the United States which have been hosted by China.

On Friday, Li will partake in a meeting of the foreign ministers of the six-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a Central Asian anti-terror and trade grouping anchored by China and Russia.

SCO, which also includes the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, was formally established in 2001 and grew out of efforts in the 1990s to strengthen confidence-building measures in the border regions and fight regional terrorism, religious extremism and separatism.

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