China on Monday called for calm and restraint over an airspace dispute between Russia and Estonia.

Geng Shuang, China's deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, made the call at an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council regarding the claim from Estonia that three Russian MiG-31 fighters entered up to 10 km inside Estonia's airspace and stayed for 12 minutes on Friday.

At the meeting, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Europe, Central Asia and the Americas Miroslav Jenca said in his briefing that the United Nations is not in a position to confirm any of the claims regarding the incident and does not have any further details of the events.

Urging all parties concerned to act responsibly, utilize all available channels to de-escalate tensions, and avoid creating additional risks to regional security, Jenca noted that the world cannot afford the risk of such dangerous and uncontrolled escalation of the Ukraine crisis.

Estonia, other European countries that participated in Monday's meeting, and the United States accused Russia of violating Estonia's airspace and of escalating tensions.

Meanwhile, Russia's first deputy permanent representative to the United Nations Dmitry Polyanskiy denied the accusation, saying that Russian jets did not violate Estonian airspace, and accusing European states of Russophobia.

Addressing the meeting, Geng said that the Estonia airspace incident and the drone incident in Poland discussed a few days earlier are both spillover effects of the Ukraine crisis.

He said as long as the Ukraine crisis remains unresolved and the fighting continues, similar incidents are likely to recur. Therefore, the urgent imperative and fundamental solution is to realize the political settlement of the Ukraine crisis as soon as possible, and build a balanced, effective and sustainable European security architecture, he said.

"In regard to the airspace incident, China urges the parties concerned to remain calm and exercise restraint, clarify facts and dispel doubts through dialogue and communication, avoid misunderstanding and misjudgment, and prevent the situation from expanding or escalating. We always maintain that countries should follow the purposes and principles of the UN Charter in handling international relations," said Geng.

The meeting was requested by Estonia. The Security Council's five European members, namely Britain, Denmark, France, Greece and Slovenia, supported the request.

Source: CCTV+