Chinese President Xi Jinping said Friday that China supports Russia's proposal on Syrian chemical disarmament as top Russian and US diplomats agreed to push again for an international conference aimed at ending Syria's civil war.

Xi said in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan while addressing the 13th summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization that China endorsed the idea of putting Syria's chemical weapons under international control for their eventual destruction.

China supports the international community in seeking a ceasefire and an end to violence and in mediating dialogues and negotiations, he said.

Also on Friday, the Chinese foreign ministry said that it welcomed a decision by Syria to join the global anti-chemical weapons treaty and supports a political and diplomatic resolution of the Syrian chemical weapon issue.

Syria on Thursday formally applied to join the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

Meanwhile, after meeting the UN envoy on Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, in Geneva, US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov agreed on Friday to try and make progress on a broader effort to end a conflict that has divided the Middle East and world powers.

They will meet again in about two weeks on around September 28 during the UN General Assembly in New York, and hoped progress in Geneva in the coming days on a chemical weapons disarmament deal would help revive plans for a peace conference.

"We are committed to trying to work together, beginning with this initiative on the chemical weapons, in hopes that those efforts could pay off and bring peace and stability to a war-torn part of the world," Kerry said.

Brahimi said working to remove chemical weapons from Syria would form an important element in efforts to hold new peace talks, following a failed attempt in Geneva last year.

Xinhua - Reuters