国际英语新闻：Russia, EU make progress on new partnership agreement

MOSCOW, Dec. 18 (Xinhua) -- Russia and the European Union had made progress in their latest talks on a new partnership and cooperation agreement, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Saturday in a statement.

During their 12th round of negotiations, the two sides made progress on a wide rang of issues including political dialogue, foreign security, justice, economy and science and technical cooperation, said the statement, which gave no details.

"We reached an agreement to hold the next 13th round of talks in the beginning of February 2011," the statement added.

Russia and the EU agreed in 2005 to work out a new deal to replace the 1994 Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA), saying the 1994 agreement was "really outlived itself" as bilateral ties had developed considerably.

Talks on the new Russia-EU agreement officially started in June 2008 but was once suspended by the conflicts between Russia and Georgia in August.