Sánchez will convey to Xi Jinping that Ukraine must set the conditions for a future peace process

Insists on the need to respect the territorial integrity of the country

BRUSSELS, March 23 (EUROPA PRESS) -

The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, will convey to the President of China, Xi Jinping, that any peace process in Ukraine must be based on the conditions established by Kiev, insisting on the need to respect the territorial integrity of the country, violated by the military invasion ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"It is important to know first-hand his position on peace in Ukraine and to convey to him that it will be the Ukrainians who will establish the conditions for the start of that peace, when it arrives," said the head of the Executive upon arrival at the meeting of heads of State and Government of the European Union in Brussels.

As he has defended, the fundamental thing is to achieve a "stable and lasting" peace and preserve the international order based on rules, respect the United Nations charter and, in particular, safeguard the territorial integrity of Ukraine.

Before his trip to Beijing on March 30 and 31 to meet with Xi Jinping, Sánchez described China as "a first-rate global player", advocating that Spain deploy its bilateral relations with the Asian giant.

In the line expressed by other members of the Government, the leader of the PSOE has stressed that this visit demonstrates the "international recognition" that is given to Spain at a time of "geopolitical complications".

The visit will take place a few days after the Chinese president's visit to Moscow, where he met Putin, and in which Xi Jinping insisted on offering himself as a mediator in the war and also signed two joint declarations on economic and strategic matters.

Precisely, Sánchez already met for about forty minutes with the Chinese president on the margins of the G20 summit in Bali (Indonesia) and asked him to exert his influence "as a stabilizing power" for Russia to put an end to the invasion of Ukraine. In that meeting, the Spanish president already conveyed his will to give "a boost" to Beijing's relations with the EU during the rotating Presidency that Spain will exercise in the second half of 2023.