Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, who is engaged in busy diplomacy over the Palestine-Israel conflict, held a phone call with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on Sunday. The Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the two ministers discussed developments in Israel and Palestine and Israel’s attacks targeting Gaza.
Fidan last visited Egypt on Saturday where he met his counterpart, as well as the German foreign minister who was separately in the country. Fidan and Egypt’s Sameh Shoukry jointly denounced Israel’s blockade of Gaza and pledged to aid besieged Gazans whose only connection to the outside world for humanitarian aid remains the Rafah border crossing with Egypt.
Earlier, Wang Yi held a phone call with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and voiced China’s support for the "just cause of the Palestinian people in safeguarding their national rights."
"The root cause... of the Palestine-Israel situation is that the Palestinian people's right to statehood has been set aside for a long time," Wang said in the call with Amir-Abdollahian, according to an official Chinese readout. "This historical injustice should end as soon as possible," Wang said, adding that "China will continue to stand on the side of peace and support the just cause of the Palestinian people in safeguarding their national rights."
More than 1 million people in the northern part of the crowded enclave of Gaza have been ordered to flee ahead of an expected major ground offensive by Israel, an exodus that aid groups said would cause a humanitarian disaster. The cramped and impoverished Gaza Strip, where 2.3 million residents live on top of each other, has been under a land, air and sea blockade by Israel since 2006.
Wang said in a call on Sunday with Saudi Arabia's Prince Faisal bin Farhan that Israel's actions were now "beyond the scope of self-defense" and the Israeli government must "cease its collective punishment of the people of Gaza." "(Israel) should listen earnestly to the calls of the international community and the U.N. secretary general, and cease its collective punishment of the people of Gaza," Wang added in a change from Beijing's earlier ambiguous statements on the conflict.
Wang told Prince Faisal that "all parties should not take any action to escalate the situation and should return to the negotiating table as soon as possible."
On Saturday, Wang held a call with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who had called on China to use its influence in the Middle East to push for calm in the region. Wang urged "the convening of an international peace meeting as soon as possible to promote the reaching of broad consensus," according to Beijing's readout of the conversation.
The country's state broadcaster CCTV said on Sunday that China's special envoy Zhai Jun will visit the Middle East next week to push for a cease-fire in the Israel-Palestine conflict and promote peace talks.
Zhai "will visit the Middle East next week to coordinate with various parties for a cease-fire, to protect civilians, ease the situation, and promote peace talks," CCTV said in a video posted to its official social media account on Sunday. Zhai said in an interview with CCTV that "the prospect of further broadening and outward spillover (of the conflict) is deeply worrying," according to the broadcaster.
Also, Zhai met Friday with the Arab League's representatives in China and said Beijing supported the regional group "in playing an important role on the Palestine issue," according to a Chinese Foreign Ministry statement.
He told the bloc that Beijing would "make unremitting efforts to get the Middle East peace process back on track," the statement added.