Ukraine tells China that Russia is not ready for ‘good faith’ talks
Al Jazeera
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba visited Guangzhou, China on Wednesday to discuss bilateral relations and the war.
Ukraine’s top diplomat has told China’s foreign minister that Kyiv was open to negotiating with Russia but only if Moscow was ready to do so in “good faith”.
Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba is the highest-ranking Ukrainian official to travel to China since Russia’s February 2022 invasion and held talks with Foreign Minister Wang Yi in the southern city of Guangzhou on Wednesday.
“Kuleba restated … that [Kyiv] is ready to engage the Russian side in the negotiation process at a certain stage, when Russia is ready to negotiate in good faith, but emphasised that no such readiness is currently observed on the Russian side,” the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
China presents itself as a neutral party in the war, insisting that the only way to end Russia’s invasion is by bringing both Kyiv and Moscow to the negotiating table.
It says it is not sending lethal assistance to either side, unlike the United States and other Western nations, though it is a key political and economic partner of Russia, with NATO members branding Beijing a “decisive enabler” of the war.
