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Al Arabiya News
Ukraine’s top diplomat told Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi during talks in the city of Guangzhou on Wednesday that Kyiv was open to negotiating with Russia if Moscow was ready to do so in good faith, something Kyiv saw no evidence of currently.
Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba is the highest ranking Ukrainian official to travel to China since Russia’s February 2022 invasion and held talks with Wang Yi for more than three hours, a Ukrainian source in the delegation said.
“Kuleba restated.. that (Kyiv) is ready to engage the Russian side in the negotiation process at a certain stage, when Russia is ready to negotiate in good faith, but emphasized that no such readiness is currently observed on the Russian side,” his ministry said in a statement.
Russian troops have been inching forward in eastern Ukraine in the 29-month-old invasion ahead of a US election in November that could see the return to the White House of Donald Trump who has threatened to cut vital aid flows to Ukraine.
The United States under President Joe Biden has been Ukraine’s biggest backer.
China, the world’s second largest economy, positions itself as neutral on the war, but declared a “no limits” partnership with Russia days before the 2022 invasion and has hosted President Vladimir Putin for talks, most recently in May.
China has also provided diplomatic backing to Russia and helped keep Russia’s wartime economy afloat.
“The talks have just concluded. They lasted for over three hours in total, longer than planned. This was a very deep and concrete conversation,” a Ukrainian source in the delegation told Reuters.
A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson told a regular news conference in Beijing that both ministers had talked up the need to take a long-term view on building bilateral ties and that China would “continue to expand its food imports from Ukraine.”
Mao Ning added that China was concerned by the humanitarian situation in Ukraine and would continue to provide humanitarian assistance.
She also said that both the Russian and Ukrainian sides had “to varying degrees signalled their willingness to negotiate” in the war.
“Although the conditions are not yet ripe, we support all efforts conducive to peace and are willing to continue to play a constructive role in bringing about a ceasefire and the resumption of peace talks,” she added.
Peace proposals
Kyiv is pushing to hold a second international summit later this year to advance its vision for peace after an initial gathering in Switzerland in June drew dozens of delegations from around the world but not from Russia or China.
Ukraine has said it would like its second summit to be hosted by a “Global South” country and that Russia should attend. Kyiv has also said it would like to see China play a more active role in ending the war.
China and Brazil published a joint six-point peace proposal in May, saying they supported the holding of an international peace conference that both sides in the war would recognize.