China urges Darfur factions to negotiate peace

China competes to make peace and imperialise the world after the west. Will china turn the imperial west. AFP

(AFP) – 22 hours ago

GENEVA — China's Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi on Wednesday urged the warring parties in the war-torn Sudanese region of Darfur to negotiate a peace agreement.

In a wide-ranging speech on Chinese foreign policy, Yang highlighted Darfur as one of four "hotspot issues", alongside tensions over North Korea, Iran's nuclear programme and the Middle East.

"China supports parallel progress in both the political process of the Darfur issue and the deployment of the peacekeeping operation," Yang said at the Geneva School of Diplomacy and International Relations.

"We urge the various factions in Darfur to come to the negotiating table and conclude a peace agreement at an early date," he added.

China is seen as a key to ending the six-year war between the government in Khartoum and Darfur rebels because it is an ally of the Sudanese regime, a weapons supplier and importer of oil from Sudan.

In his speech stressing Beijing's commitment to "peaceful development," Yang also reiterated China's stance on the Iranian nuclear issue.

"We maintain that the Iranian nuclear issue should be resolved peacefully through diplomatic negotiations and that efforts should be made to pursue a long-term solution to the issue," he said.

Iran has defied UN Security Council sanctions by continuing to enrich uranium, a process which makes fuel for nuclear power plants but can also form the core of an atomic bomb.

Foreign ministers of the Group of Eight industrialised democracies are expected to review the Iran nuclear issue in late September, in line with a timetable set at their summit in Italy in June.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in July that the United States and China were united against Iran becoming a nuclear weapons state.