LONDON: European shares rose on Friday adding to the strong gains earlier this week, as investors focussed on Russia-Ukraine peace negotiations and digested the talks between US President Joe Biden and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index closed 0.9% higher with technology stocks, leading the gains.

The benchmark index was headed for its best weekly performance since November 2020 on optimism that peace would be negotiated in the Ukraine conflict that has rattled global markets.

“It’s been a weird week because although we still got everything going on in Ukraine, we’ve also been sort of pulled back to the normal hustle and bustle and investors do like normality,” said Danni Hewson, financial analyst at AJ Bell.

US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke on a video call on Friday about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Chinese media said Xi underlined that such conflicts are in no-one’s interests.