KUWAIT (Reuters) – Kuwait’s foreign minister said in a meeting with his Chinese counterpart he hoped Beijing would support Kofi Annan’s peace plan for Syria, state-run news agency KUNA reported on Thursday.
Outrage at last Friday’s massacre in the Syrian town of Houla has led a host of countries to expel senior Syrian diplomats and to press Russia and China to allow tougher action by the U.N. Security Council.
“(He said) he hopes China would show support for the joint U.N.-Arab League special envoy Kofi Annan’s plan, aimed at bringing the violence in Syria to a halt,” KUNA said.
Kuwait’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah Khaled al-Sabah made the comments during a bilateral meeting with China’s Yang Jiechi on the sidelines of a China-Arab cooperation forum in Tunis, KUNA said. The two men also discussed the agenda of next week’s Arab League meeting in Doha, it added.
China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman reiterated on Wednesday that China “opposes military intervention and does not support forced regime change”.
“The fundamental route to resolving (the crisis) is still for all sides to fully support Annan’s mediation efforts,” Liu Weimin told a daily news briefing.