China’s leader Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin will discuss the war in Ukraine and other “international and regional topics” at their meeting in Uzbekistan later this week, informs British broadcaster BBC.
Xi Jinping is making his first trip overseas since the start of the pandemic. China’s leader significantly reduced the risk that he would catch the coronavirus by not travelling internationally for more than two years.
China’s leader is beginning his three–day trip in Kazakhstan, where he landed in the capital Nursultan, for the first his first visit, on Wednesday, 14 September. He will then meet Valdimir Putin on Thursday, 15 September, at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in Samarkand, which will run from 15-16 September.
Russian president will also meet other leaders, including those of India, Pakistan, Turkey and Iran – but his meeting with China’s leader «is of particular importance,» said Kremlin foreign policy spokesman Yuri Ushakov.
Kremlin foreign policy spokesman said that the summit was taking place «against the background of large–scale political changes».
China and Russia have long sought to position the SCO, founded in 2001 with four ex-Soviet Central Asian nations, as an alternative to Western multilateral groups.
This is the two leaders’ second meeting this year – they last met at Winter Olympics in Beijing in February. Following the February meeting, the two leaders issued a joint statement saying the friendship between their countries had “no limits”. Russia invaded Ukraine days later – an action China has neither condemned nor voiced support for. Beijing, in fact, has said both sides are to blame.
The SCO meeting comes amid fresh clashes on the border between two of its members – Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Reports say at least one border guard was killed and two injured.
Sporadic clashes between the two countries broke out raised over a water dispute and other issues last year.