A day after blocking an attempt to add Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar to the United Nations’ list of internationally recognised terrorists, China on Friday said that it was ready to work with India to ensure the progress of bilateral relations, PTI reported.

“India is an important neighbour of China,” the country’s Assistant Foreign Minister Chen Xiaodong was quoted as saying. Chen said that China not only attached great importance to its relations with India but also plans to improve them. It plans to do this under the “neighbourhood diplomacy with Chinese characteristics in the new era” enunciated by President Xi Jinping recently, Chen said.

He also highlighted China’s consistent efforts at promoting bilateral relations and developing mutual political trust with its neighbours over the past few years.

On Thursday, for the fourth time, China blocked an attempt by the United States, France and the United Kingdom to add Azhar’s name to the United Nations’ list because “there was no consensus”. Azhar’s Jaish-e-Mohammed is already on the UN’s list of banned terror outfits.

In August, China had extended its technical hold on the proposal to list Azhar as a global terrorist by three months.

Azhar was identified as the mastermind of the 2016 attack on the Indian Air Force base in Pathankot. India has maintained that Azhar and the Jaish-e-Mohammed also played a key role in the attack the Indian Army’s Uri base in Jammu and Kashmir in September 2016.

Azhar is also wanted by India for his involvement in the Parliament attack case and the bomb blast at the Srinagar Assembly in 2001. India had released him after an Indian Airlines flight was hijacked in Afghanistan’s Kandahar in 1999. Azhar and two other militants were freed in exchange for passengers and crew who were being held hostage by the hijackers.