Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin met Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is on a visit to the European country, and lent his full support to Beijing’s recently proposed “peace” initiative amid the Ukraine war.
During a meeting between the leaders on Wednesday, Lukashenko told Xi, “Belarus has been actively proposing peace and fully supports your initiative on international security.”
The meeting between Lukashenko and Xi led to a joint call by them for a cease-fire and negotiations to bring about a political settlement to the Ukraine conflict.
The development comes after China recently said that it hopes to play a constructive role in resolving the geopolitical tensions between Russia and Ukraine and came up with the so-called peace plan in the form of a 12-point foreign ministry paper for a gradual de-escalation between the warring nations.
Lukashenko also called for a cease-fire and negotiations to end the Ukraine war which entered second year. He said the meeting is held at a very difficult time which requires “new nonstandard approaches and responsible political decisions,” reported Belarusian Telegraph Agency (BelTA).They should be aimed to prevent global confrontation which will have no winners. You have recently stated it, both clearly and unambiguously, addressing the world community,” the Belarusian president added.
In a veiled reference to the US and other European nations, Xi said, “Relevant countries should stop politicizing and using the world economy as their tool, and take measures that truly advance a cease-fire and stop to war and resolve the crisis peacefully.”
The core of China’s stance is to call for peace and encourage talks … and for the legitimate security concerns of all countries to be respected,” Xi was quoted as saying by Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.Meanwhile, Lukashenko also held a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and urged to give an impetus to the bilateral ties between the nations.
We have no closed topics for cooperation. We cooperate in all avenues. Most importantly, we have never set ourselves the task of being friends or working against third countries,” Lukashenko told Li.
In response to China’s peace plan, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia paid a “lot of attention” to it and added that “for now, we don’t see any of the conditions that are needed to bring this whole story towards peace.”