Beijing says it welcomes ‘Palestinian and Israeli representatives coming to China for direct negotiations’
Foreign ministry accuses US of blocking Security Council from reaching consensus, while also claiming China will not be deterred from promoting peace
 |
| Debris in Gaza City's Rimal area on May 20 after it was bombed by an Israeli air strike. Israel and the Palestinians are mired in their worst conflict in years as Israel pounds the Gaza Strip with air strikes and artillery, while Hamas militants fire rockets into Israel. Photo: AFP |
China said it planned to hold talks with Israel and other powers to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict after it had expressed “firm support” for Palestine’s statehood in a telephone call with Palestinian officials this week.
Beijing has sought to play a more active part in the crisis and has used its role as the rotating chair of the United Nations Security Council this month to cement its position as an arbiter in the Middle East peace process.
In separate phone calls with Palestinian and Egyptian officials over the past two days, China’s special envoy on the Middle East, Zhai Jun, has called for peace talks between Palestine and Israel to resume and reiterated China’s “firm support for the just cause of the Palestinian people in resuming their national sovereign rights”, according to a statement by the foreign ministry on Thursday.
Also on Thursday, the ministry’s spokesman Zhao Lijian said Zhai would hold more phone calls with counterparts from Israel, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations.
He said China planned to hold a seminar about the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and “welcomes Palestinian and Israeli representatives coming to China for direct negotiations”, without giving further details.
Zhao again accused the US of blocking the Security Council from reaching consensus on the issue. “The Chinese side’s efforts in promoting peace will not stop because of this. The Chinese side will actively participate in the process of mediation in its own ways,” he said.
Read more :
Beijing had previously accused Washington of “ignoring the suffering” of the Palestinian people while leading an international attack against China over its treatment of the Uygur Muslims.
The Palestinian ambassador in Beijing, Fariz Mehdawi, said in an interview with Caixin this week that the Palestinian government supported the Chinese initiative of holding talks in Beijing, even though the idea was unlikely to gain support from the US or Israel.
“We absolutely welcome this. We are also aware that China is becoming more active in mediating the Palestinian-Israel question. But the question remains whether the US is willing to let China play a leading role in this and whether Israel is willing to come to China,” Mehdawi said.
He said Israel should stop bombing Gaza, and that the US should abolish policies adopted by the former Trump administration, which he said was unfriendly to Palestinians.
For example, he said the Biden administration still had not reopened a Palestinian office in Washington, and that the US embassy in Jerusalem was still operating.
The post of US ambassador to Israel is still vacant.
Israeli-Palestinian hostilities entered their 10th day with at least 230 Palestinians killed, including 65 children and 39 women, with 1,710 people wounded, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. A dozen Israelis have died.
Israel unleashed another wave of air strikes across the Gaza Strip on Thursday and Hamas rocket attacks against Israel also continued.
US President Joe Biden said he expected “a significant de-escalation today on the path to a ceasefire”. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had no intention of putting an end to the violence. But both sides reportedly said they were close to an agreement on a ceasefire.
