China on Thursday denied reports that it plans to deploy troops to Afghanistan, saying the neighbors are engaged merely in “normal military and security cooperation,” AP reported.

Defense Ministry spokesman Col. Wu Qian said reports in Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post newspaper and elsewhere that hundreds of People’s Liberation Army soldiers are to man a base in eastern Afghanistan are “simply not true.”

“China and Afghanistan have normal military and security cooperation,” he told reporters at a monthly briefing.

Afghanistan’s ambassador to China, Janan Mosazai, said this week that Beijing is helping Afghanistan set up a mountain brigade to bolster counterterrorism operations, but that no Chinese troops would be stationed in the country.

“While the Afghan government appreciates this Chinese assistance and our two militaries are working in close coordination on utilizing this assistance, there will be no Chinese military personnel of any kind involved in this process on Afghan soil,” Mosazai said.