CHINA CALLS FOR PEACE PUSH
Zelenskyy again promised a second “peace summit” and said he was inviting both China and India, key powers that have refused to go along with Western sanctions on Ukraine.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, addressing the Security Council, welcomed what he described as rising pressure for diplomacy.
“Dialogue and negotiation are the only viable way to settle the Ukraine crisis. If day after day, peace talks cannot be launched, then misjudgment and miscalculation would build, which leads to even greater crisis,” he said.
He insisted China was devoted to peace, saying: “China is not a creator of the Ukraine crisis, nor are we a party to it.”
But he spoke ahead of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who again charged that China has been fueling Russia’s military build-up through the export of items nominally for civilian use including advanced electronics and machine tools.
Blinken rejected suggestions that his criticism was hypocritical when the United States is arming Ukraine.
“There is a profound difference. Russia is the aggressor. Ukraine is the victim,” Blinken said.
He called for the United Nations to act against both North Korea, which has ramped up military supplies to Russia, and Iran, recently accused by US intelligence of shipping short-range missiles to Russia.
“Support from Tehran and Pyongyang is helping Putin inflict carnage, suffering and ruin on innocent Ukrainian men, women, children,” Blinken said.
Zelenskyy said of the two countries: “Russia has no legitimate reason – none at all – for making Iran and North Korea de facto accomplices in its criminal war in Europe, with their weapons killing us, killing Ukrainians.”
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, a self-styled moderate in the cleric-run state, on Monday denied Tehran has sent weapons and criticized Moscow for its “aggression”.
