China proposes Putin-Trump summit to end Ukraine war: Report
US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin hold a bilateral meeting at the G20 leaders summit in Osaka, Japan, on Jun 28, 2019. (Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque)
BEIJING: China has floated a proposal to hold a summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump to help end the Ukraine war, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
Chinese officials in recent weeks have raised a proposal with the Trump team through intermediaries to hold a summit between the two leaders and to facilitate peacekeeping efforts after an eventual truce, according to people in Beijing and Washington cited by the newspaper.
China's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Trump said Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had expressed a desire for peace in separate phone calls with him on Wednesday (Feb 12), and Trump had ordered top US officials to begin talks on ending the war in Ukraine.
The Kremlin had said Putin and Trump had agreed to meet, and Putin had invited Trump to visit Moscow. Trump said their first meeting would "probably" take place soon in Saudi Arabia.
No Ukraine peace talks have been held since the early months of the conflict, now approaching its third anniversary. Trump's predecessor, Joe Biden, oversaw billions of dollars of military and other aid to Kyiv and had no direct contact with Putin after Russia's invasion.
Russia occupies about one-fifth of Ukraine and has demanded Kyiv cede more territory and be rendered permanently neutral under any peace deal.
Ukraine demands Russia withdraw from captured territory and says Kyiv must receive NATO membership or equivalent security guarantees to prevent Moscow from attacking again.
China has been repeatedly urged by the West to use its close relationship with Russia to help end the war. Beijing has said it was not a party to the crisis but that it had been consistently promoting peace talks on its own terms.
In a peace plan last year, China, jointly with Brazil, proposed an international peace conference "at a proper time" and called for equal participation by both Ukraine and Russia.
