Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez will meet with his Chinese counterpart President Xi Jinping in China next week to discuss the Asian country’s peace plan for the war-torn country Ukraine, the Spanish government said on Thursday.
Sanchez will be only the second leader of a European country to visit China since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic three years ago, after Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s visit in November 2022.
Spanish PM will attend the Boao Forum for Asia in China’s Hainan province on March 30 before traveling to China to meet with Xi, the Spanish government said in a statement.
Sanchez will discuss with Xi, Spanish Parliamentary Affairs Minister Felix Bolanos told public television TVE.
China can play a very important role in the mediation between Russia and Ukraine, and this will of course be one of the themes.
It is essential that this conflict ends and that Russia recognises that this is an absolutely unjustified aggression and, therefore, that everything returns to the situation that prevailed before the Russian invasion,.
Sanchez added.
Spain, like the EU, has offered Ukraine its absolute support and will shortly send up to 10 Leopard tanks to Ukraine. China has offered a 12-point position paper on the war which includes a call for discussion and respect for all countries’ territorial sovereignty. Xi made a recent visit to Russia earlier this week which was interpreted as a strong show of support for his counterpart Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The Russian president hailed China’s 12-point position paper on the battle. But the United States and the European Union remain suspicious of the Chinese proposal.
Of course, we would like there to be a ceasefire as soon as possible but it will require a lot of work from a diplomatic point of view.”
Bolanos said.
Sanchez’s visit comes as Spain, a member of NATO, is preparing to assume the six-month rotating presidency of the European Union (EU) in July. Sanchez and Xi last had bilateral talks in November 2022 during the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia.
