The Ukrainian Prime Minister, Denys Shmyhal, assured this Thursday that the first conversation between the presidents of Ukraine, Volodimir Zelenski, and China, Xi Jinping, since the start of the Russian invasion of their neighbor “opens a new stage in relations”. between both countries. Since February, Beijing has shown considerable interest in being a mediator between Moscow and kyiv for a peace process.
This Wednesday the Chinese president and his Ukrainian counterpart finally had a phone conversation to discuss the invasion of Russia for the first time since February 2022. “I had a long and significant phone call with President Xi Jinping. I believe that this call, as well as the appointment of the Ukrainian ambassador to China, will give a powerful impetus to the development of our bilateral relations,” Zelensky said after the call.
Given this, the Prime Minister of Ukraine stated from a congress in Rome, Italy that it was a very productive conversation between the two presidents, since it “opens a new stage in relations between Ukraine and China.” “I am convinced that it is a good start for the positive development of our relations in the future,” Shmyhal said at the headquarters of the Foreign Press Association in Italy.
Faced with the possibility of China as a mediator, the prime minister responded that Ukraine has its own path to peace, with the Zelensky formula. “We know perfectly well what the liberation of Ukraine is. All territories within the 1991 borders must be free (…) Security must be guaranteed by international structures. Only then will we be sure to have a stable, just and lasting peace,” he said.
For his part, at the beginning of April, the Chinese ambassador to the European Union (EU), Fu Cong, stated that the Asian giant has never sided with Russia, nor has Ukraine during the course of the aggression between the two countries. which Moscow began last February 2022. The representative of Chinese diplomacy in European territory criticized the position of Kiev’s allies for misinterpreting their intentions.
The Chinese representative stated that he has not condemned the war because Russia “is waging a battle against expansionist intentions against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)”, although he was assured that the Xi Jinping administration does not recognize Crimea as Russian, like other territories of Ukraine “included” in the Russian Federation. “The boundless friendship between Beijing and Moscow is rhetoric, nothing more,” he said.
With information from EFE
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