On the heels of the reconciliation China had fostered between Saudi Arabia and Iran earlier this year, President Xi Jinping proposed in June that an international peace conference be held on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
That proposal is now back on the agenda, with even more urgency.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin reported at today’s press conference that Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, and Brazilian President Lula da Silva’s chief foreign policy advisor, Celso Luiz Nunes Amorim, had conferred on Oct. 12 on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and agreed to “closely” coordinate efforts to restore peace.
“China calls for an international peace conference with greater authority and impact as soon as possible to galvanize a more broad-based international consensus with the two-state solution serving as its basis, and to formulate a timetable and roadmap to that end,” the Foreign Minister told Amorim, according to the spokesman. Wang Yi added that the UN has both the responsibility and an obligation “to play its due role on the Palestinian question.”
He emphasized that the “crux” of the Middle East situation “is that justice has eluded the Palestinians for too long. The current conflict showed again in an extremely brutal way that solution to the Palestinian question lies in resuming genuine peace talks as soon as possible and realizing the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.”
Steps to ensure the safety of civilians and open corridors for aid to enter Gaza were also central to their discussions. Their call, in fact, occurred preparatory to the emergency UN Security Council meeting on the humanitarian crisis which Brazil, president of the UNSC in October, had called for today.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry and Brazil’s Folha de São Paulo daily both reported that Amorim told Wang Yi that Brazil is ready to closely coordinate with China on actions to bring about a peaceful resolution to the situation.
