Peace priority, Abbas tells Chinese leader

BEIJING: Chinese President Xi Jinping met with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in Beijing yesterday, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu due to follow him later this week.
Abbas’s three-day trip — the first by a Middle Eastern leader since Xi took office in March — ends today, overlapping with a five-day visit to China by Netanyahu that began in Shanghai on Monday and will end in the capital.
Chinese state-run media have called Abbas’ trip a state visit, while officials described Netanyahu’s as an “official visit.”
After a full military welcome ceremony outside the Great Hall of the People, Xi told Abbas he had “maintained the strategic choice of peace” and helped “building a country which has received the wide respect and support of the Palestinian people and international society.”
Abbas said: “I appreciate China’s high position in the world nowadays. In recent years all the Chinese governments have adopted wise policies that have effectively had benefits and avoided harm.”
The two sides signed cooperation agreements on economic technical cooperation and cultural exchange, details of which were not immediately available.
During his meetings Netanyahu is expected to seek greater Chinese backing for tougher sanctions against Iran.