MOSCOW, July 13./TASS/. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Wang Yi, director of the Foreign Affairs Commission Office of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee, met on Thursday and gave an assessment of the international community’s efforts toward settling the Ukrainian crisis through negotiations.
The parties "exchanged views on the current situation around the Ukrainian crisis; attention was paid to an assessment of the international community's efforts to launch a peaceful negotiation process on Ukraine," the Russian Foreign Ministry reported.
Lavrov and Wang met in Jakarta on the sidelines of ministerial-level events under the aegis of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
The diplomats gave high marks to the development of political dialogue and practical cooperation between Russia and China against the background of growing turbulence in the world. "Specific attention was paid to the course of implementation of the agreements concluded following the top-level bilateral contacts that have taken place since the beginning of this year," the Russian Foreign Ministry noted. They "confirmed the importance of maintaining cooperation with the aim of deepening foreign policy interaction between the two countries," the ministry went on to say.
In addition, it said that Lavrov and Wang had a lengthy discussion of cooperation within the ASEAN framework in the context of increasing activity on the part of certain countries aimed at creating narrow, bloc-based, military-and-political formats intended to undermine the time-tested ASEAN-centric system for maintaining stability and security in the Asia-Pacific region.
According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, the talks emphasized the importance of strengthening foreign policy cooperation between Moscow and Beijing via diverse international platforms, including the UN, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), BRICS, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), and G20, among others. "A shared commitment was expressed to strengthen coordination between the two countries regarding issues on the regional and global agenda in the interests of shaping a fairer, more sustainable polycentric world order," the ministry summed up.