MOSCOW: The Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov held a telephone conversation with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on Monday, during which the two sides reached a board agreement on the situation in crisis-hit Ukraine, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
“The foreign ministers have exchanged their views on the situation in Ukraine. They noted a broad overlap of the Russian and Chinese views on the current situation in and around this country (Ukraine),” the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
The Russian ministry said that the two ministers pledged to continue close contacts on the issue.
The developments come as seven major industrialized countries including Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Britain and the United States denounced Russia’s military actions in Ukraine’s semi-autonomous Republic of Crimea.
In a statement, the seven countries said that Russia’s actions in Ukraine are incompatible with the principles of the G-8. They also announced their decision to suspend this week’s preparatory talks in the Russian city of Sochi ahead of the G-8 summit later this year.
“We have decided for the time being to suspend our participation in activities associated with the preparation of the scheduled G-8 Summit in Sochi in June,” the statement said.
Russia has dispatched hundreds of its troops to Crimea to protect its interests and also of those Russian speakers in that region after the upper house of the Russian parliament unanimously approved a request by President Vladimir Putin to deploy troops into the region if necessary.
The approval came after Crimea’s regional Prime Minister Sergey Aksenov asked Putin to help restore peace and calm in the region amid tensions over the region’s resistance against new pro-Western authorities in Kiev.
