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Xi Jinping and Zelensky speak for the first time since the start of the war in Ukraine

2023-04-26T14:36:52.362Z


The Ukrainian leader is confident that the talk will give a "boost" to relations with China The long-awaited telephone conversation between Beijing and kyiv finally took place one year and two months after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, called on Wednesday his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodimir Zelenski. "Dialogue and negotiation are the only viable way out," Xi confided to him, according to the official reading from Beijing published by th


The long-awaited telephone conversation between Beijing and kyiv finally took place one year and two months after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, called on Wednesday his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodimir Zelenski.

"Dialogue and negotiation are the only viable way out," Xi confided to him, according to the official reading from Beijing published by the official Xinhua news agency.

In the conversation, the Chinese leader also stressed that "mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity is the political basis of relations" between the two countries.

The remote talk comes after an intense diplomatic deployment by the Chinese government, which in recent months has presented a 12-point roadmap with its vision to stop the war and has offered itself as a facilitator for peace.

The call has been slow to come, but it has paid off.

"I have had a long and significant telephone conversation with President Xi Jinping," Zelensky said on social media.

"I believe that this call, as well as the appointment of the Ukrainian ambassador to China, will give a strong impetus to the development of our bilateral relations," he announced.

Beijing also plans to send a "special representative for Eurasian affairs to Ukraine and other related countries in order to maintain in-depth communication on the political resolution of the Ukrainian crisis," Xi told Zelensky.

In the conversation, the Chinese president stressed that his country has not created the "crisis" in Ukraine nor is it an implicated party.

And he has stressed the role of China as an "honest" country, which has not contributed to adding "fuel to the fire" or taken advantage "to profit."

After recalling that "dialogue and negotiation are the only viable way out", Xi has assured that in "a nuclear war there are no winners".

He has called for containment and to take advantage of a moment, in his opinion, propitious "for the political solution of the crisis."

"China's core position is to promote peace through talks."

In the same message on social networks, Zelensky thanked China for offering humanitarian aid to Ukraine, and stated that the Asian power "is welcome to play an important role in restoring peace and resolving the Ukrainian crisis for diplomatic media”, according to the reading offered by the Xinhua news agency.

More information

Last minute of the war in Ukraine, live

Russia's reaction has not been long in coming.

Moscow has not strayed from its script and has praised the Chinese initiative while categorically ruling out that Kiev is taking any possible step towards peace,

reports Javier G. Cuesta

.

"We take note of the willingness of the Chinese side to establish a negotiation process," said the spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zajárova.

This representative believes that kyiv "and its Western promoters" reject "any sensible initiative that leads to a diplomatic and peaceful solution to the Ukrainian crisis."

Moscow continues, however, without making concessions, and the Kremlin has reiterated these months that all its objectives will be met.

Goal of European leaders

Xi's call was one of the main objectives sought by European leaders who have visited Beijing in recent weeks.

The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, who traveled to China with French President Emmanuel Macron in early April, assured in an appearance after meeting with the Chinese leader that he had shown a "willingness" to speak with the Ukrainian president “when the conditions and the moment are right”.

Both Von der Leyen and Macron as well as the President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, who was visiting Beijing at the end of March, had good words about some points of the role of "position" (not a peace plan) of the Chinese Executive to the "political solution of the crisis" (not war) in Ukraine.

Among others, the "total and resounding rejection" of the use and threat of use of nuclear weapons, and "respect for territorial integrity", which "is violating [Russian President Vladimir] Putin", according to Sánchez assured before the press in Beijing.

The call somehow quarantines the West's doubts about the neutrality that China can maintain in the face of the contest.

From the beginning, Beijing has maintained a calculated balance tilted towards Moscow and has never condemned the war (which it never calls "

war"

).

Both the EU and the US received this 12-point plan presented by Beijing with skepticism, largely because it does not distinguish between the aggressor and the victim.

Before receiving the visit of various leaders of the European Union, Xi was on a trip to Moscow and in his meeting with President Vladimir Putin, the Chinese told him: "Changes are taking place that have not occurred in 100 years.

When we are together, we pilot those changes.”

To which the Russian replied: "I agree."

But on the first day of his visit to the capital of the Eurasian country, Xi also confided to his counterpart: "On the Ukraine issue, voices are gathering for peace and rationality," and assured him that the majority of The countries support "the relief of tensions, are committed to peace talks and are opposed to adding fuel to the fire," according to the official reading that was provided by Beijing.

Xi also reminded him that if one goes back through history, he realizes that, in the end, "conflicts must be resolved through dialogue and negotiation."

The conversation between Xi and Zelensky also comes after the statements by a Chinese diplomat on the sovereignty of the former Soviet republics have raised the mistrust of the EU in recent days regarding the role of the Asian giant in the war in Ukraine.

In a TV interview broadcast last Friday, Chinese Ambassador to France Lu Shaye questioned the international sovereignty of the former Soviet republics, including the Baltic countries and Ukraine, as well as Crimea's membership in this country, raising a storm diplomacy of considerable proportions, especially in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, deepening its already tense relationship with Beijing.

This same Monday, China reversed almost immediately and conclusively on the words of the ambassador, denying that this is the official position of Beijing: "China respects the status of the former Soviet republics as sovereign countries after the dissolution of the Soviet Union said Mao Ning, a spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“The country you mention,” he remarked in reference to a specific question about Ukraine's sovereignty, “is a full member state of the UN.

We all know that only sovereign countries can become UN member states."

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2023-04-26

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