Riyaz ul Khaliq
04 July 2024•Update: 04 July 2024
ISTANBUL
Beijing and Ankara share “same or similar views” on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Ukrainian crisis, China’s President Xi Jinping said on Thursday during a meeting with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
China and Türkiye “should communicate closely” on these issues, Xi said.
Xi and Erdogan met in the Kazakh capital Astana, on the sidelines of a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) leaders.
The discussion on Palestine and Ukraine between the two leaders, who last met in Uzbekistan's historic city of Samarkand in Sept. 2022, came as Israel's war on Gaza continued for nearly nine months, killing over 38,000 Palestinians, the majority of whom were women and children.
Russia’s war on Ukraine has surpassed more than two years with tens of hundreds dead and millions displaced.
A readout from Beijing said Xi expressed China’s readiness to “strengthen coordination and cooperation” with Türkiye within multilateral frameworks such as the UN and G20.
Relations with Türkiye “have maintained a stable development momentum (and) both are major developing countries and members of the Global South,” said the Chinese president.
He noted that the two nations “have a broad consensus in pursuing the development and revitalization of their respective countries and maintaining the norms of international relations.”
“The two sides should support each other in safeguarding core interests, continuously consolidate political mutual trust, promote high-level mutually beneficial cooperation, and promote greater development of China-Türkiye strategic cooperative relations,” he said.
“China supports Türkiye in taking a development path that suits its national conditions,” Xi said, pressing the two sides to expand trade.
He voiced his support for Chinese companies to increase their investments in Türkiye and encouraged more Chinese citizens to visit the country.
