Moscow: A meeting of 40 countries has been organised in Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah city to stop the Ukraine conflict that has been going on for the last 17 months. Russia has described this Jeddah meeting as a major failure of the West’s efforts against Russia. Russia was expected to react since it was not invited to this meeting. However, China, which had stayed away from earlier meetings on the Ukraine conflict issue, attended the Jeddah meeting, which has drawn much attention, experts said.
Due to the presence of the United States, European countries, China and India in this meeting, the Jeddah meeting was expected to have concrete provisions necessary to end the Ukraine conflict. However, the absence of Russia in this meeting clarifies the limitations of this meeting. Ukraine demanded that Russia first withdraw its army from Ukraine to end this conflict. It has received support for it in the meeting. Due to this, Ukraine has expressed satisfaction while recording its reaction to this meeting.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed that the meeting was largely successful. However,
Russia has registered a sharp reaction to this meeting. After the meeting, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Rybkov criticised the talks and termed it a major failure of the new effort of the West. Deputy Foreign Minister Rybkov accused the summit of being organised to incite the countries of the Global South against Russia.
Meanwhile, not much has been achieved from this meeting, yet China’s presence has attracted much attention. Earlier, China had strongly supported Russia by staying away from these meetings organised to stop the
Ukraine conflict. However, China attended the Jeddah meeting, which drew attention. Due to the presence of China, the success or failure of this meeting has not been affected. Yet, the possibilities of creating a rift in China-Russia cooperation have started emerging. Analysts have claimed that this issue will prove important in the future.
For the last few days, there have been indications of differences between Russia and China on some issues. Analysts are indicating that the presence of China in the Jeddah meeting results from the same differences. As soon as the Ukraine war started, China appeared to take the side of Russia. After the Western embargo on Russia’s energy exports, China and India bought huge quantities of fuel from Russia. Along with this, the matter of China providing large amounts of arms and other essential goods to Russia came to the fore. However, some international analysts have claimed the US has readied
China to adopt an anti-Russian position by putting pressure on it. Therefore, indications are that the effect of it is visible in the form of China’s presence at the Jeddah meeting.
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