China will consider taking part in a peace conference aimed at ending the war in Ukraine which neutral Switzerland plans to host in the coming months, the Asian country’s ambassador to Bern was quoted as saying today.
Wang Shihting, China’s ambassador to Switzerland, said in an interview with the Neue Zuercher Zeitung that all parties should work to end the war, which began over two years ago.
“The crisis must be prevented from getting even worse, oreven getting out of control,” he said. “We are closely following the Ukraine conference that Switzerland will host, and are examining the possibility of taking part.”
The Swiss government has said it aims to hold the peaceconference by this summer after the idea was floated in January.
Russia, which invaded Ukraine in February 2022, then calledthe peace conference plan “pointless” and indicated it wasdoomed to fail without Moscow’s participation.
Last month, Swiss President Viola Amherd said it wasdoubtful that Russia would take part at the outset of talks.
In the interview, Wang stressed China had put forward astrategy for a political end to the conflict.
“The territorial sovereignty of all countries must berespected, and the UN Charter must be adhered to,” he said.
“We should support Russia and Ukraine resuming directdialogue as quickly as possible so that the situation can begradually de-escalated,” Mr Wang said.
