In Russia, Chinese President Xi Jinping has warned against foreign meddling in the affairs of other countries, sending a signal to the West on the crisis in Syria.
“We must respect the right of each country in the world to independently choose its path of development and oppose interference in the internal affairs of other countries,” Xi said in his address to students at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations on Saturday.
On his first foreign trip after becoming president, Xi met with the Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday, a visit that the two leaders hailed as a sign of “strategic partnership” between the two nations.
During the meeting, the Chinese president said that Beijing and Moscow had similar positions on key international and regional issues, and that the internal affairs of a country should be addressed by its own government.
Russia and China, both Permanent UN Security Council members with veto power have resisted Western calls to pressure the Syrian government and have blocked three draft resolutions against the Arab country.
This is while, some Western counties along with Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are funding and arming the militants fighting against the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government.
Syria has been experiencing unrest since March 2011. Many people, including large numbers of Syrian army and security personnel, have been killed in the violence.
The Syrian government says that the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country, and there are reports that a very large number of the militants are foreign nationals.