Putin and Xi to meet again in July after Russian president’s recent visit to China

Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to meet his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping again in July, said Moscow’s top diplomat during a meeting with China’s foreign minister, on Monday (May 20).

Putin and Xi to meet again

During a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Russia’s top diplomat Sergey Lavrov said that the leaders of the two countries will meet on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in July.

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“Our schedule of contacts is very, very intensive. We look forward to welcoming you, Mr. Minister, dear friend, at a session of the BRICS foreign ministers in Nizhny Novgorod in less than a month,” Lavrov told Wang during a meeting, according to a statement by the Russian news agency Interfax.

He added, “Our leaders will meet during an SCO summit here in Astana in July.” The upcoming meeting with the two world leaders would be the second one in around two months.

The meeting between Lavrov and Wang took place on the sidelines of the SCO foreign ministers’ meeting where the Chinese foreign minister also told Russia’s top diplomat that the two countries should ramp up support for each other to ensure stability in their shared region.

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“The two sides should prepare for bilateral engagement in the course of the year, continue to increase mutual support, stabilise the fundamentals of cooperation and maintain security and stability in the common Chinese-Russian neighbourhood,” Wang said, according to the Chinese foreign ministry.

Meanwhile, the Russian foreign ministry said that the two diplomats also exchanged views on “various pressing issues” including the Middle East “peace process”, developments in the Red Sea region and the situation on the Korean peninsula.

China and Russia are the founding members of the SCO, a Eurasian political, economic, international security and defence organisation set up in 2001. India and Pakistan officially joined the grouping in 2017, and Iran became a full member just last year.

Putin’s visit to China

The Chinese president recently hosted his Russian counterpart during his state visit to China where Xi said the China-Russia ties are “conducive to peace,” while, in a similar statement, Putin stated that the ties between the two nations are ‘stabilising” for the world.

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The visit to China was also Putin’s first trip abroad since his March reelection and a second one to Beijing in just over six months.

“Relations between Russia and China are not opportunistic and not directed against anyone,” Putin said, according to a statement by the Kremlin.

(With inputs from agencies)