Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrovcame to China for a two-day meeting dedicated to Afghanistan, his first visit to the country after invading Ukraine, the Embassy of Russia in Beijing.
VIEW: Why is China not yielding to international pressure to condemn Russia?
Chinese communist authorities have refused to condemn Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine, which began on February 24, and have instead denounced Western sanctions against Moscow.
Lavrov arrived in Tunxi (east), where a meeting of seven neighboring countries of Afghanistan (Russia, China, Pakistan, Iran, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) will take place until Thursday, the embassy announced on its social network Weibo.
According to the official Chinese press agency Xinhua, the diplomatic chief of the Taliban regime in Kabul, Amir Khan Muttaqi, is also expected to attend the meeting.
At the same time, a meeting of a “consultation mechanism” on Afghanistan is to be held, attended by diplomats from China, Russia, Pakistan and the United States, Beijing said.
These meetings come a week after Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s first visit to Kabul following the Taliban takeover last August.
China shares a small, 76-kilometer high mountainous border with Afghanistan.
Beijing fears that its neighbor will become a base for Uyghur separatists and Islamists, most of whom live in the vast border region of Xinjiang (northwest).
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US President Joe Biden on Wednesday labeled his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin a “war criminal” and announced massive military aid to Ukraine, which calls for an exclusion zone, which Washington rejected. (Source: AFP)