UNITED NATIONS — China and the United Nations have started working further towards establishing a Chinese peacekeeping standby force, the Military Staff Committee of the Chinese Mission to the UN told Xinhua on June 24.

To follow through on China’s pledge to establish a peacekeeping standby force of 8,000 troops, a working group from the Peacekeeping Office of China’s Defense Ministry paid a visit to the UN headquarters from June 20-24, according to a statement made by the committee.

UN Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operation Herve Ladsous and UN Under-Secretary-General for Field Support Atul Khare met the working group respectively, according to the committee.

Speaking highly of China’s contributions to UN peacekeeping, Ladsous and Khare said the well-equipped Chinese peacekeeping troops are a reliable force in UN peacekeeping operations and they look forward to a greater role played by China in UN peacekeeping, said the statement.

They also expressed their condolences to the Chinese peacekeeper who died in a recent attack against UN peacekeeping mission in Mali and also to those injured in the attack, it added.

UN statistics show that China has currently deployed more than 3,000 peacekeepers to UN peacekeeping missions worldwide and is the largest troop contributor among the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. China is also the second largest financial contributor to UN peacekeeping.