Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi poses as he meets Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan (not seen) in Ankara, Turkey, July 26, 2023. Stringer/Pool through REUTERS/File Photo Acquire Licensing Rights
BEIJING, Sept 18 (Reuters) – China’s prime diplomat, Wang Yi, begins on Monday a four-day journey to Russia throughout which each nations are anticipated to pledge deeper mutual political belief, readying for a possible landmark go to by President Vladimir Putin to Beijing in October.
Wang, who heads the international ministry in addition to the ruling Communist Party’s international affairs workplace, will meet Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev for annual safety talks, the Chinese international ministry stated in an announcement.
The veteran diplomat’s talks with counterpart Sergei Lavrov will cowl a “wide range of issues” together with “contacts at higher and the highest levels,” the Russian international ministry stated final week.
Wang is anticipated to put the groundwork for Putin’s go to to the Chinese capital for the third Belt and Road Forum after an invite by President Xi Jinping throughout a high-profile go to to Moscow in March.
Putin attended China’s first two Belt and Road Forums in 2017 and 2019.
But he’s not recognized to have travelled overseas because the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant towards him on grounds of illegally deporting a whole lot of kids from Ukraine.
On Sept. 1, Putin stated he anticipated to satisfy Xi quickly, however didn’t explicitly affirm that he would journey to China once more.
The warrant, issued simply days earlier than Xi visited Russia, obligates the court docket’s 123 member states to arrest Putin and switch him to the Hague for trial if he enters their territory.
However, China just isn’t a celebration to the Rome Statute that led to the institution of the ICC in 2002.
The go to may also see an in depth alternate of views on points together with Ukraine, ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stated final week.
Wang final visited Russia in February on the eve of the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, alarming the United States, which accused the 2 nations on the time of sharing a imaginative and prescient during which “borders could be redrawn by force”.
Ahead of this week’s go to, Wang travelled to Malta for hours of “constructive” talks with White House nationwide safety adviser Jake Sullivan.
The weekend talks have been the most recent in a sequence of high-level conferences between U.S. and Chinese officers that might lay the muse for a meeting this yr between Xi and U.S. President Joe Biden.
Reporting by Ryan Woo; Additional reporting by Lidia Kelly; Editing by Clarence Fernandez
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
