By ABC.au
Any Chinese supply of lethal aid to Russia for the war in Ukraine would be a “historic mistake with profound implications”, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said.
In remarks made at NATO headquarters in Brussels, he also said Russia’s announcement that it would station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus showed a Russia-China joint statement days earlier, in which they jointly declared countries should not deploy nuclear weapons outside their borders, amounted to “empty promises”.
“And what we need to watch closely is what Russia is doing,” he said.
The US and NATO have said China was considering sending arms to Russia, which Beijing has denied.
In an interview with a state television broadcaster on Sunday, Mr Putin said Russia and China were not creating a military alliance and have not hidden anything about their military cooperation.
Mr Stoltenberg said Russia was becoming more and more dependent on China, partly as a result of international sanctions imposed on Moscow over its war in Ukraine.
“Trade with China has become even more important for Russia,” he said.
US working to release journalist
Mr Stoltenberg reiterated his call for the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was arrested last Thursday in Russia.
“This is about freedom of the press,” Mr Stoltenberg said.
The comments came as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the nation is working through the process to determine whether Gershkovich’s detention by Russia is “wrongful”.
“It’s something that we’re working through very deliberately, but expeditiously as well. And I’ll let that process play out,” Mr Blinken said in Brussels.
“In my own mind, there’s no doubt that he’s being wrongfully detained by Russia, which is exactly what I said to Foreign Minister Lavrov when I spoke to him over the weekend and insisted that Evan be released immediately.”
Russia’s FSB security service said on March 30 it had arrested Gershkovich, a US citizen, and accused him of gathering information about a Russian defence company that was a state secret.
The Wall Street Journal has denied Gershkovich was spying. The White House has called the espionage charge, which carries a prison term of up to 20 years, “ridiculous”.
The “wrongfully detained” designation means the responsibility for the case would be transferred from the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs to the office of the Special Envoy for Hostage Affairs, raising the issue’s political profile and allowing the government to allocate more resources to securing Gershkovich’s release.
Legislation passed by Congress in 2020 lists 11 criteria to help determine whether a US citizen is “wrongfully detained.”
The Secretary of State uses these criteria to make the designation, but a case does not need to fulfil all 11 points to merit the label.
