https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3217049/ukraine-war-china-calls-all-parties-create-conditions-peace-talks?module=lead_hero_story&pgtype=homepage
Ukraine war: China calls for all parties to ‘create conditions for peace talks’
- Foreign Minister Qin Gang tells Russian counterpart that Beijing is ready to play a constructive role in restarting negotiations
- Sergey Lavrov calls the meeting ‘timely’ and says relations between the two countries have shown ‘a robust resilience’
Foreign
Minister Qin Gang has again said China is willing to play a
constructive role in restarting talks between Russia and Ukraine, during
a meeting with his Russian counterpart on Thursday. “There
is no panacea to resolve the Ukraine crisis and all parties should
build mutual trust and create conditions for peace talks,” Qin told
Sergey Lavrov, according to a Chinese foreign ministry statement.
“China
is ready to work with the Russian side to promote high-level …
bilateral relations, with the core task being to implement the consensus
of the two heads of state [reached in March],” Qin said during the
meeting on the sidelines of a conference in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. The
two foreign ministers last met at the Group of 20 gathering in New
Delhi in early March. Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Moscow soon
after, signing a joint statement with Russian leader Vladimir Putin
calling for settlement of the Ukraine conflict and a commitment from
Moscow to restart talks aimed at ending the war.
The
Samarkand meeting came ahead of a four-day visit to Russia by Chinese
Defence Minister General Li Shangfu. China’s defence ministry on Friday
said Li would travel to Russia on Sunday and hold talks with Russian
military officials as well as visit military academies during the trip. On
Thursday, Qin also highlighted China’s “recent appeals” to the
international community, including a 12-point peace plan released in
February that calls for a gradual de-escalation of the situation and
opposes the use of nuclear weapons. The proposal has had a lukewarm
response from Western leaders who say it lacks concrete measures.
Qin
has previously said China was “an advocate for a political solution to
the crisis and a promoter of peace talks”. China has never condemned
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Thursday’s
meeting was held on the sidelines of a meeting on the situation in
Afghanistan attended by the foreign ministers of neighbouring countries
Pakistan, Iran, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan as well as China
and Russia.
Qin also said that China and Russia would
“contribute to the multipolarity of the world and the democratisation of
international relations”, referring to their goal of making conditions
fairer on the global stage. “The
sides will continue to strengthen coordination and cooperation within
multilateral structures such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation
and the organisations of BRICS countries [Brazil, Russia, India, China
and South Africa],” Qin said, according to the Chinese statement.
He
said they would look into setting up joint free-trade zones as ties
grew stronger between the Belt and Road Initiative and the Eurasian
Economic Union. A
Russian foreign ministry statement said Lavrov and Qin “highly
appreciated the current state of bilateral relations of comprehensive
partnership and strategic cooperation” and “noted a high degree of
closeness and coincidence of positions on all the issues discussed”.
Lavrov described the meeting as “timely” and said relations between China and Russia had shown “a robust resilience”. He
said that after last month’s talks between Putin and Xi, efforts must
be intensified “across the board on all tracks of our interaction, both
for enhancing bilateral cooperation and as regards resolving regional
and international prob