Israel-Gaza war: China stands with Russia to help cool Middle East crisis, Beijing envoy in Qatar meeting says
- On first leg of his mediation trip to the region, Beijing’s Middle East envoy Zhai Jun meets Russian counterpart Mikhail Bogdanov in Doha
- Zhai commends Qatar’s significant influence on the Palestinian issue and says Beijing is ready to work with Doha to ease the tension
“Beijing and Moscow share the same position on the Palestine issue,” Zhai was quoted saying in the Chinese foreign ministry readout. “The fundamental reason for the current situation in the conflict is that the legitimate rights of the Palestinian nation have not been guaranteed.”
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During the meeting, Zhai and Bogdanov said Moscow and Beijing had constant focus on “close coordination of efforts in the interest of a political settlement of this and other crises in the Middle East and North Africa region”, according to Russia’s foreign ministry statement.
Both Beijing and Moscow favoured an early end to hostilities, preventing further escalation and urgent action on the humanitarian crisis, including helping the affected population and releasing hostages, the Russian readout said.
On Thursday, Zhai also held talks with Qatari State Minister Mohammed bin Abdulaziz al-Khulaifi in Doha, where Zhai said China maintained a consistent stance of promoting peace, dialogue and a political settlement on the Palestine issue.
“At the moment, China is in intensive communication with the relevant parties in the international community to promote a ceasefire and an end to the hostility,” Zhai said, according to a separate Chinese foreign ministry readout.
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Zhai commended Qatar’s significant influence on the Palestinian issue and said China was ready to work with Doha and play “a constructive role” in easing the tension.
According to the Chinese readout, Al-Khulaifi said Qatar attached great importance to the role and influence played by Beijing and was ready to strengthen communication and make efforts to resolve the Palestinian issue.
Beijing said on Friday more than 1,000 Chinese citizens had left Israel since the crisis began on October 7, while Beijing has helped more than 280 Chinese nationals who were trapped in the southern Israeli city of Sderot, where the security risk is high.
“Under the joint efforts at home and abroad, all stranded Chinese people in Sderot have been safely evacuated, and some of them have taken commercial flights to return home,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said at a regular press conference on Friday. “We will continue to do our best to provide assistance to Chinese citizens.”
On Thursday, the Chinese embassy in Israel reiterated an earlier call by Beijing to advise local Chinese nationals “to fly back to China or leave Israel on commercial flights as soon as possible”, as the security situation in Israel became more dangerous and complicated.
Beijing has not yet announced organised repatriation plans to evacuate its nationals from Israel, even as other governments are providing coordinated schemes to stranded nationals via chartered, military or remaining commercial flights.
