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China's Xi repeats call for political resolution for Syria

by Reuters
Thursday, 5 June 2014 08:50 GMT

(Adds foreign ministry comment on Syria election, further quotes from Xi)

BEIJING, June 5 (Reuters) - Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday repeated a call for a political resolution to the Syrian crisis and his country's support for an inclusive political transition, and offered to boost aid for Syrian refugees.

China and its ally, Russia, have both vetoed Western efforts to set U.N. penalties on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, although China has been keen to show it is not taking sides and has urged the Syrian government to talk to the opposition.

China has also said a transitional government should be formed.

"China respects the reasonable demands of the Syrian people, and supports the early adoption of the Geneva communique and the opening of an inclusive political process to bring about a political resolution to the Syrian issue," Xi told a China-Arab forum in Beijing, in a speech broadcast live on state television.

The first round of Syria peace talks in Geneva in 2012 stipulated the establishment of a transition government, though subsequent efforts have floundered.

Assad won a landslide victory in a wartime election on Tuesday that opponents condemned as a sham, but which demonstrated his tenacious hold on power after three years of brutal civil war.

Assad's foes have ridiculed the election, saying the two relatively unknown and state-approved challengers offered no real alternative to Assad.

The United States and European Union also condemned the election.

Xi made no mention of the vote, and a spokesman for China's foreign ministry would only say in reaction to the election that no matter what happened in the country, a political solution was the only way out.

"All sides should work for this," ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a daily news briefing.

China has tried to mediate in the crisis, playing host to both opposition and government delegations, though to little apparent effect.

China is paying great attention to the humanitarian situation of the Syrian people, and would give further aid to refugees in Lebanon and Jordan, Xi added, but gave no details.

China, which is not a major diplomatic player in the Middle East despite its reliance on oil imports from the region, has consistently urged a political resolution for Syria and opposed the use of military force.

Xi said China and the Arab world should try to broaden their economic relationship beyond the dominance of oil, and look at sectors such as nuclear power, satellites and manufacturing.

Both sides should fight extremism, he added, but made no direct mention of the Islamist militant threat Beijing says it faces in the far western Chinese region of Xinjiang, which, in any case, has generated limited interest in Arab countries.

"We should work together to ... prevent extremist forces and beliefs from creating faultlines between different cultures," Xi said. (Reporting by Ben Blanchard and Li Hui; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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