China presents UN with vague Mideast peace plan as US promotes its own role in easing the Gaza war
UNITED NATIONS — UNITED NATIONS (AP) — China presented a four-point plan for peace in the Middle East to the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday in a demonstration of its ambitions to be a global superpower. But the plan contained few details, and the United States quickly reminded the council of its efforts to ease the war in Gaza.
China has played little role in negotiations over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which has been largely monopolized by the United States for decades.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told the council that the war showed the urgent need for a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
“We must revive the political prospects of the two-state solution with more determination,” he said. The lack of a Palestinian state is “at the heart of the repeated turbulence in the Palestinian-Israeli situation,” he said.
U.S. President Joe Biden and other U.S. officials have also spoken in favor of working toward a two-state solution to the conflict.
China made its biggest move in Middle East politics when it struck a deal in March for longtime adversaries Iran and Saudi Arabia to restore diplomatic ties. The deal – sealed in Beijing after direct intervention by President Xi Jinping – has helped ease the Saudi-Iranian rivalry that has fueled conflict in the region.
“For the first time, they showed a willingness to play a role in political and security issues in the Middle East,” said Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. “That then opened the floodgates of expectations.”
Regardless, the United States remains a major power in the Middle East, and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield emphasized Washington’s efforts, along with Middle Eastern allies, to end the current war. help alleviate.
“We are now on the sixth day of the humanitarian pause in Gaza,” she said. “A pause that, quite frankly, would not have been possible without the leadership of Qatar, Egypt and the United States.”
Wang took a longer historical perspective. “Israel has long established an independent state and the Jews are no longer without a home,” Wang told the Security Council. “But the right of the Palestinian people to have their own state, their right to exist and their right to return, has long been ignored.”
“Fairness and justice in the Palestinian issue lie in the two-state solution,” he continued. “This is irreplaceable.”
On two of his other points, Wang told the council that the world should “work with the utmost urgency for a comprehensive and lasting ceasefire” and better protect civilians.
His fourth point was that the Security Council “must assume its responsibility on important issues of war and peace and life and death… in light of developments on the ground, and take further action immediately.” Wang did not specify what action the council should take.
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Associated Press writer Lee Keath in Cairo contributed.