'No more destruction in Palestine, Lebanon': China's Xi urges BRICS to be stabilizing force for peace

By Riyaz ul Khaliq

ISTANBUL (AA) – Stressing that there should be "no more suffering and destruction in Palestine and Lebanon," China’s President Xi Jinping Thursday called on the BRICS member states to "uphold peace and strive for common security."

"We should come forward together to form a stabilizing force for peace and explore solutions to address both symptoms and roots of hotspot issues," Xi told the participants of the expanded BRICS bloc format summit held in the southwestern Russian city of Kazan.

President Vladimir Putin was among the BRICS summit leaders where the Chinese leader reiterated his call for ending the war between Moscow and Kyiv.

Russia launched "a special operation" against Ukraine in February 2022. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed while millions have since been displaced.

A day earlier, Xi called for de-escalation between Russia and Ukraine as the war has nearly been going on for three years.

​​​​​​​"We need to continue to push for a cease-fire in Gaza, relaunch the two-state solution and stop the spread of war in Lebanon. There should be no more suffering and destruction in Palestine and Lebanon," Xi stressed.

Pointing to the issues of expanding the emerging economic bloc, Xi extended China’s support to “greater involvement of Global South nations in BRICS matters.”

"The collective rise of the Global South is a clear sign of the great changes in the world," Xi noted.

"It is a great event in world history and an unprecedented feat in the process of human civilization that countries of the Global South jointly move towards modernization," the Chinese leader added.

He was addressing the final day of the BRICS summit with the main highlight being a meeting in the BRICS Outreach/Plus format.

This gathering includes nations that are not BRICS members but are interested in strengthening their ties with the economic bloc.

The BRICS organizing committee has announced that 36 countries will attend the meeting, with 22 represented by heads of state, including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Leaders from Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America, as well as representatives of several international organizations, are in attendance. The Russian delegation is led by President Putin.

On Wednesday, the BRICS leaders adopted the "Kazan Summit Declaration," which summarized the summit's outcome and Russia's term as BRICS chair.