Relations between NATO and China had fully recovered from the difficult time after NATO's bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999, said a spokesman for the organization on Thursday.

There was obviously difficulty in relations in that period, said James Appathurai.

"But I can tell you now, based on my own experience, that relations between China and NATO have fully recovered, that the relations, such as they are, are friendly," he told reporters at a briefing prior to the opening of an informal meeting of North Atlantic Treaty Organization foreign ministers in Sofia.

"They reflect what both parties wish the relationship to be: that is, it is informal, but it is very warm."

He said that there was no structural, formal cooperation between China and NATO, "But I have no doubt that if both parties at some point wish for that to take place, it can and will."

NATO warplanes bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in May 1999, killing three Chinese journalists living there. The incident took NATO-China relations to its lowest ebb.

Source: Xinhua