Chinese President Xi Jinping has called on major powers to “create conditions” for direct “dialogue” between Ukraine and Russia currently at war, during a meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in Beijing.
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“The international community should create conditions and offer assistance to both sides so that direct dialogue and negotiations can be resumed,” Xi told Orbán, according to state broadcaster CCTV.
“Only when the major powers show positive energy, rather than negative energy, can there be hope for a ceasefire in this conflict,” he added.
Last week, the Hungarian leader made surprise visits to Russia and Ukraine, after his country assumed the six-month presidency of the European Union (EU) on July 1.
His visit to Moscow was not welcomed by his European partners, who provide unwavering support to kyiv and have cut ties with Russia since it invaded the former Soviet republic in February 2022.
Orbán, whose country is a member of both the EU and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), is the only EU leader who has remained close to the Kremlin.
Both China and Hungary advocate a peaceful solution to the conflict and maintain exchanges with the Kremlin.
Beijing and Budapest “fundamentally share” the same ideas, Xi told Orbán.
What is the ‘peace mission’ about?
Xi and Orbán had already held a private meeting in May, during a state visit by the Chinese leader to Hungary.
At the time, the Chinese president praised the EU as an exemplary “strategic partnership” and called on Hungary to play “a greater role” in the “development” of relations between Beijing and Brussels.
The current visit to Beijing is a “peace mission 3.0,” Orbán wrote on the social network X.
In Ukraine, the Hungarian Prime Minister met with President Volodymyr Zelensky on July 2 and called for a “ceasefire”, a position that goes against that of his European and Ukrainian allies.
The international community should create the conditions and offer assistance to both sides so that direct dialogue and negotiations can resume.
Zelensky rejected the idea, saying Moscow would use it to strengthen its position in the country.
kyiv is demanding the complete withdrawal of Russian troops from the former Soviet republic, including the Crimean peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014, and payment for damages caused since the invasion.
Ukraine depends on Western aid to confront Russia.
Washington, its main supporter, announced another $2.3 billion, including for anti-aircraft defence systems.
Orbán, on the other hand, is opposed to such aid and vetoed a €50 billion EU package earlier this year, which was finally approved after some delay.
“Xi Jinping appreciated Orbán’s efforts to promote a political solution to the Ukrainian crisis and expounded China’s views and proposals,” CCTV reported.
The meeting comes a day before a NATO summit marking the 75th anniversary of the US-led alliance.
Brussels insists that Orbán has no mandate to represent the EU in China either
The European Commission insisted on Monday that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán does not have the authority to represent the European Union abroad, following his surprise trip to China today.
“What is clear and has been acknowledged by Prime Minister Orbán himself is that he does not have the mandate to represent the EU on these visits,” said European Commission spokesman Eric Mamer at the institution’s daily press conference.
The EU executive thus reiterated the message it has been sending since last Friday after the meeting that Orbán held with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, in which they spoke about the war in Ukraine, a few days after assuming the rotating presidency of the EU for the second half of the year.
In this regard, Mamer said that Hungary “has specific responsibilities as the presidency when it comes to managing the work of the EU Council,” which “is completely different from what it does as a member state with its own foreign policy.”
Similarly, the head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, distanced himself last Saturday from the meeting that Orbán held over the weekend with the leaders of the Organization of Turkic States (OTS), to which Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkey belong and whose objectives include legitimizing the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus as an observer.
Borrell recalled that the EU only recognises the Republic of Cyprus and aims to resolve the conflict on the island by creating a bi-zonal and bi-communal federation.
Following these latest trips, the European partners are expected to discuss the issue with Hungary at the weekly meeting of EU countries’ ambassadors on Wednesdays, a diplomatic source said.
The same source expressed his conviction that the discussion on the role that a country should play during its rotating presidency “will not be the last” during this semester and was convinced that there will be “great tensions” next week, during the preparatory meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council to be held in Brussels on July 22.
Especially considering that Hungary continues to block €6.6 billion from the European Peace Facility that the EU-27 use to co-finance arms shipments to Ukraine.
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