Russia must be at next Ukraine talks – Germany’s Scholz
A new peace conference on finding a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine conflict should be held soon, with Russia invited this time, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has said.
In June, Switzerland hosted the first Ukraine peace conference without Russia’s participation. The much-hyped event failed to deliver any concrete results, with many nations in attendance refusing to support its joint declaration. Moscow described the summit – which focused solely on Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky ‘peace formula’ – as a “parody of negotiations,” and said it would not have attended even if the Swiss organizers had asked.
On Tuesday, Scholz told the German parliament: “we need another peace conference. And Russia must be at the table. That is the task we must tackle now.”
According to the chancellor, Kiev and its Western backers need the summit in order “to explore what options are available” to settle the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
He stressed, however, that his call for a peace conference does not mean that Berlin will stop providing military support to Kiev.
On Friday, Zelensky suggested that the conflict should end “this fall.” According to him, for this to happen, NATO must keep arming Ukraine and increase the pressure on Moscow to agree to Kiev’s ‘peace plan’ – which calls for the withdrawal of Russian forces from all territories that Kiev considers its own and for Moscow to pay reparations and submit its officials to war tribunals.
President Vladimir Putin reiterated last week that Russia has “never refused” negotiations with Ukraine, but stressed that they should take place “not on the basis of some ephemeral demands, but on the basis of the documents that were agreed in Istanbul” in late March 2022, when the two sides last held talks.
At the time, Kiev was willing to declare military neutrality, limit its armed forces, and stop discriminating against ethnic Russians. In return, Moscow would have joined other leading powers in offering Ukraine security guarantees, Putin said.
“The document did not come into force only because the Ukrainians were ordered not to do this. The elites in the United States and some European countries felt the desire to seek Russia’s strategic defeat,” according to the Russian president.
Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said on Monday that Moscow currently does not see proper conditions to begin peace talks to settle the Ukraine conflict. “We hear various statements from European countries, but we do not see any statements on this matter from the country that is actually directing this entire process,” Peskov said, in an apparent reference to the US.
