Russia FM denies hospital trip, Blinken to visit China

NUSA DUA, INDONESIA: Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov is in good health after two health checks at a hospital in Bali, an Indonesian health ministry official said on Monday, as Moscow denied the top diplomat had been hospitalised.

Russia called reports Lavrov had been hospitalised “the highest level of fake” and Moscow’s foreign ministry spokeswoman posted a video of the 72-year-old diplomat in a T-shirt and shorts.

An Indonesian official told AFP said Lavrov had been taken to hospital two days in a row after arriving on the resort island of Bali on Sunday, where he is replacing President Vladimir Putin as the head of Moscow’s delegation.

“He (Lavrov) is in good health, he came to the hospital yesterday after he arrived in Bali, only to get his health checked,” said health ministry official Sunarto.

“Earlier (Monday), he came again to the hospital only for another health check and thank God he is healthy,” he told AFP.

Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova slammed speculation around the health of Moscow’s top diplomat and showed herself laughing with Lavrov in a video.

“We’re here with Sergei Viktorovich (Lavrov) in Indonesia, reading the wires and we can’t believe our eyes,” she said. “It’s the highest level of fake.”

Lavrov claimed the reports were part of “some kind of game” that he blamed on Western media.

“They’ve been writing for about 10 years that our president is sick,” he said. Lavrov will represent Russia at the two-day summit of the world’s 20 biggest economies, which starts on Tuesday, with Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine likely to dominate the agenda.

Separately, US officials said secretary of state Antony

Blinken will visit China early next year in a sign of easing tensions following talks between the two countries’ presidents.

The White House, in a statement after talks between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping, said Blinken would travel to China “to follow up on their discussions”.

A senior state department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the two countries were working “to schedule a visit tentatively planned for early next year”.

Blinken’s visit would be the first by a US secretary of state since Mike Pompeo, who served under then-president Donald Trump, paid a brief visit in 2018. Pompeo and Trump later became known for fierce denunciations of China, including over the Covid-19 pandemic.

Under Biden, climate envoy John Kerry is the only senior official to have visited, in part due to strict entry restrictions related to Covid.