China says will not attend ‘Friends(!) of Syria’ meeting in Paris

The government of China has announced that it has no plan to take part in the so-called “Friends of Syria” conference which is scheduled to be held in the French capital, Paris, on Friday.

China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Liu Weimin, said on Thursday that his country has been invited to the event, but “(China) at present does not consider attending the meeting.”

“We believe that it’s a key phase now for resolving the Syrian issues politically,” he added.

The Paris meeting follows one in Tunisian capital, Tunis, in February and another in April in the Turkish port city of Istanbul. China was not present in any of those meetings.

Russia, another veto-holding power at the UN Security Council, had already announced that it would not attend the conference, either. Moscow accuses the West of trying to distort a previous deal reached by world powers on Syria in the Geneva meeting.

The participants of the Geneva meeting agreed that the transitional governing body in Syria “could include members of the present government and the opposition and other groups, and shall be formed on the basis of mutual consent,” the UN-envoy Kofi Annan said at a press conference after the meeting.

The Geneva meeting on June 30 was attended by foreign ministers of the UN Security Council’s five permanent members along with Turkey, Kuwait, Qatar, Iraq, plus representatives of the UN, the Arab League and the European Union.

The so called “Friends of Syria” group has more than 60 members including the United States, France, Britain, Germany, along with Arab nations Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Syria has been experiencing unrest since mid-March 2011, which has so far claimed the lives of many people, including security forces.