Remarks Before Meeting With Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi

SECRETARY KERRY: Well, Minister Wang Yi, thank you very much. Thank you for your welcome and thank you for the relationship that you and I have developed over three and a half years now in which we've worked on many, many issues. I actually talked to Susan Rice about five minutes before she saw President Xi and we had a good discussion about the important issues on which we are working right now.

I can assure you of this: President Obama wants the G20 in Hangzhou to be a success. President Obama is very much looking forward to the visit to China. And we believe very strongly that the relationship between China and the United States is, without question, one of, if not the most consequential bilateral relationships on the globe. And that is because we do cooperate on areas of such importance like Iran, the nuclear agreement, counterterrorism, climate change -- where we made a huge difference together. But we also have differences that we know and we work to manage those differences in a thoughtful and effective way.

So I think both President Obama and I would say that we appreciate the serious way in which we have been able to talk directly with President Xi, with you, with State Councilor Yang Jiechi, and to be able to have a successful Security[1] and Economic Dialogue, which we did early in the summer. And now we begin to build towards the G20 and the important issue of the DPRK, the UN Security Council resolution in which we both cooperated very, very closely.

So this is as important a time for a number of issues where we do have differences that we need to have an opportunity to be able to talk them through. So I'm grateful for your approach. You and I have always been able to talk very directly and productively, and I look forward to continuing that today. Thank you.

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