BEIJING: Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged on Tuesday to make “unremitting” efforts towards promoting peace in the Middle East following a meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, as China steps up its diplomatic engagement with the region.
Palestinian officials have urged China, which supports an independent Palestinian state, to do more in the Middle East peace process. Speaking to reporters after meeting Abbas in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, Xi said the international community paid close attention to the Middle East peace process.
“As the Palestinian people’s good friend, partner and brother, China hopes Palestine and Israel can achieve peace as soon as possible and live and work in peace. China will make unremitting efforts for this,” Xi said, after receiving a Palestinian medal of honour from Abbas.
China has historically had a good relationship with the Palestinians.
Deputy Chinese Foreign Minister Zhang Ming later said Xi reiterated support for the establishment of a Palestinian state, and also called for the security of both the Palestinians and Israelis to be protected.
It is important to advance a political settlement on the basis of the two state solution, Zhang added, paraphrasing Xi.
US President Donald Trump has renewed efforts to get Israeli-Palestinian talks going again, after they collapsed in 2014.
His Middle East envoy, Jason Greenblatt, announced an Israeli-Palestinian water agreement last week but dodged questions on whether he was making headway on reviving peace talks.
Xi told visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in March that peaceful coexistence between Israel and the Palestinians would be good for both parties and the region, and that it was favoured by the international community.
Netanyahu’s trip came just days after China hosted Saudi Arabia’s King Salman and signed deals worth as much as $65 billion with Riyadh.
More broadly, China hopes a peaceful Middle East will lessen the flow of ethnic Uighurs from the far western Chinese region of Xinjiang, to Syria and Iraq to join up with militant groups there.
— Reuters
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