There will be consequences for China if it decides to provide substantial military or financial support to the Russians that allow them to escape sanctions, a top American diplomat warned on Sunday.
In a call with China's President Xi Jinping on Saturday, US President Joe Biden detailed the implications and consequences if Beijing were to provide material support to Russia in its attacks against Ukraine, the White House has said. Biden spoke at length with China's leader to dissuade Beijing from providing aid to Moscow.
US ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told CNN in an interview that Biden was clear about his discussion with Xi, in which he made our position very well-known that there will be consequences if China decides to provide substantial military or financial support to the Russians that allow them to avoid the sanctions. The conversation was two hours long, but it was extraordinarily frank, it was detailed and substantive. And we made our position clear to the Chinese, she said. They're in an uncomfortable position. They have been put in a position of defending Russia against our principles of sovereignty and integrity of borders. So, they have to decide where they will go from this point, and not sit on the fence, and call out the Russian aggression for what it is, and not put themselves in the position of defending what is indefensible, Thomas-Greenfield said about Beijing.
Accusing Russia of invading Ukraine in violation of all international norms, she said it is unconscionable for Russia to force Ukrainian citizens into Russia, and put them in what will basically be concentration and prisoner camps. Scores of Ukrainians from the besieged port city of Mariupol, who were forcibly deported to Russia are "disturbing" and "unconscionable" if true, Thomas-Greenfield asserted. So, this is something that we need to verify. Russia should not be moving Ukrainian citizens against their will into Russia, she said. The Russians came to the Security Council on Friday with these spurious accusations that the US was supporting Ukraine's chemical weapons programmes. And I'm not going to give that any more amplification here. What we see happening is, again, this is a false flag effort by the Russians. They are advancing what they might intend to do, Thomas-Greenfield said. We have seen it happen before. They are the ones who've used chemical weapons. They used them in Syria. They have used chemical weapons against their own people. And we are concerned that they may use chemical weapons in Ukraine, she added. Russia will face more consequences from the US if it uses chemical weapons in its invasion of Ukraine, Thomas-Greenfield warned further. We have been clear, if they escalate to this level, we will respond aggressively to what they are doing. You have seen the consequences so far of our actions against Russia and against Putin. And they are feeling those consequences. And they will feel more if they take this unfortunate decision to use chemical weapons, she added.
The US had found that the Putin regime used chemical weapons in the poisoning of opposition leader and fierce Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny in 2020, and in 2018 against Sergei and Yulia Skripal in England.
.
Read the Latest News and Breaking News here
Comments
0 comment