Skip to main content

"A Good Thing": US Cautiously Optimistic About China-Ukraine Phone Call

The White House on Wednesday welcomed a phone call between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Ukraine President Volodomyr Zelensky but said it was too soon to tell whether it would lead to a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.

"That's a good thing," White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said about the call. "Now, whether that's going to lead to some sort of meaningful peace movement, or plan, or proposal, I just don't think we know that right now."

Xi spoke by telephone on Wednesday with Zelensky for the first time since Russia's invasion of Ukraine last year. The call came after months of pressure from Kyiv for such talks.

Xi told Zelensky that China would send special representatives to Ukraine and hold talks with all parties seeking peace, Chinese state media reported.

"We have long said we want this war to end," Kirby said. "It could end immediately if Putin would leave. That doesn't appear to be in the offing.

"If there's going to be a negotiated peace, it's got to be when President Zelensky is ready for it," Kirby said, adding that the United States would welcome "any effort to arrive at a just peace as long as that peace could be ... sustainable, and could be credible."

Kirby said the United States did not have advanced knowledge of the call, and would not necessarily expect to.

"These are two sovereign leaders and we're glad to see that they did talk," Kirby said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)



from NDTV News-World-news https://ift.tt/u7t5k0Y

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Released 2 American Hostages On "Humanitarian Grounds": Hamas

Gaza's ruler Hamas said Friday its armed wing has released two American hostages, from around 200 captives abducted in attacks by the militant group in Israel on October 7. "In response to Qatari efforts, (Ezzedine) al-Qassam Brigades released two American citizens (a mother and her daughter) for humanitarian reasons," Hamas said in a statement posted on Telegram. The Islamist group did not detail how or when the hostages were released. The Israeli military said earlier Friday that most of those abducted to Gaza were still alive. "The majority of the hostages are alive. There were also dead bodies that were taken... to the Gaza Strip," an army statement said. The military said more than 20 hostages were minors, while between 10 and 20 were over the age of 60. There are also between 100 and 200 people considered missing since the Hamas attacks, the army added. On October 7, the Palestinian militant group carried out a deadly assault on Israel, the worst in...

Gaza's Rafah Border Crossing Area Hit In Military Strike

The area of the Rafah border crossing between the blockaded Gaza Strip and Egypt was hit Monday in a military strike, AFP correspondents said, as hundreds of Palestinians gathered hoping to cross. The area of the shuttered crossing point in Gaza's south had been hit at least three times last week by Israeli air strikes after Gaza-based Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7 that triggered all-out war. (Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.) from NDTV News-World-news https://ift.tt/z9CBc7N

Sri Lanka Must Achieve Debt Restructuring By September: IMF

The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday reaffirmed that Sri Lanka must achieve its debt restructuring process by September, which is also the time for the global lender's formal review of the bailout facility it extended to the cash-strapped nation. On March 20, IMF extended a nearly $3 billion bailout facility to debt-ridden Sri Lanka that would help stabilise the country's economy after it was jolted by a devastating economic crisis last year. In a statement issued on Tuesday at the end of a nearly two weeks staff visit to Colombo to assess the progress made by Sri Lanka since the agreement was reached, the IMF said the two sides had discussed the developments on debt restructuring. "Sri Lanka must achieve debt restructuring by its first review due in September. We also discussed progress on debt restructuring, noting the ongoing discussions with both foreign and domestic creditors," the statement read. Sri Lanka is still struggling to normalise its crisis-hi...