VIENTIANE: The foreign ministers of Russia and China met on Thursday on the sidelines of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) foreign ministers talks in Laos, Moscow and AFP journalists said.
The three-day meeting of the 10-member ASEAN bloc started in the capital Vientiane on Thursday, with the South China Sea and the conflict in Myanmar high on the agenda.
Sergei Lavrov held talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on the sidelines of the meeting, Russia’s foreign ministry said.
A schedule for Thursday’s meeting seen by AFP showed that Lavrov was due to join Wang for a 40-minute “ministerial meeting”.
Lavrov left the venue at 7.15 pm local time (1215 GMT), without commenting on what the meeting had covered.
China is a close political and economic ally of Russia and NATO members have branded Beijing a “decisive enabler” of Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
Their meeting came a day after Wang held talks in China with Ukraine’s top diplomat Dmytro Kuleba.
Lavrov said before an earlier meeting with the foreign ministers of China and Laos that ASEAN was “one of the essential elements of a new, more just multipolar world order”.
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It must “ensure a stable and secure development, outside the blocs, of the Asia-Pacific region,” he said.
The foreign ministers of Canada, India and the United Kingdom arrived in Vientiane on Thursday to attend the talks as dialogue partners, AFP journalists said.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is also expected to attend.
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