France expresses "dismay" after Chinese ambassador denies sovereignty of former Soviet countries
France has expressed its "dismay" after statements by the Chinese ambassador to France, who denied the sovereignty of the countries that emerged from the Soviet Union and questioned whether the Crimean Peninsula belongs to Ukraine, AFP and Agerpres report.
Lu Shaye told French news channel LCI that the former USSR countries "have no effective status in international law because there is no international agreement to concretise their status as sovereign countries".
On the Crimean Peninsula, a Ukrainian territory that Russia has occupied since 2014, he said:
"It depends on how we perceive this issue. There is history. Crimea was originally Russia's. It was Khrushchev who gave Crimea to Ukraine during the Soviet Union."
The Chinese diplomat urged that disputes over the post-Soviet border issue be dropped.
"At present, the most urgent thing is to stop, to reach a ceasefire" between Russia and Ukraine, he said.
The French Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it "noted with dismay" the remarks, asking China "to say (if they) reflect its position, which we hope is not the case".
Ukraine was internationally recognised "within its borders including Crimea in 1991 by the entire international community, including China, upon the fall of the USSR, as a new member state of the United Nations," Paris insisted, recalling that Russia's annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 was "illegal under international law".
While Beijing officially claims to be neutral, Chinese President Xi Jinping has never condemned the Russian invasion and has so far not even spoken to Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelenski on the phone. Instead, he recently visited Moscow to reaffirm his partnership with Russian President Vladimir Putin, quickly appearing as an anti-Western front.
During a visit to China in early April, Emmanuel Macron urged Xi Jinping to "bring Russia to its senses" over Ukraine and urged him not to deliver weapons to Moscow.
The two heads of state released a joint statement in which they pledged to "support any effort to restore peace in Ukraine".
