2023-10-28 06:45:09
In Malta, new peace talks, but without Russia
A third round of Ukraine-backed talks to end the Russian invasion begins on Saturday in Malta. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hopes the two-day meeting, following similar meetings this summer in Jeddah and Copenhagen, will build support for his 10-point plan to end at war.
Diplomatic advisers from around fifty countries – but not Russia – as well as international institutions are expected to participate, more than the around forty nations who took part in the Saudi summit in August. kyiv hailed the growing list of participants, which includes countries such as Turkey, Brazil and India, as a sign of global support for the process.
Mr. Zelensky is pushing his ten-point peace plan, which calls for Russia to withdraw all its troops outside Ukraine’s internationally recognized borders. But Russia – which proclaimed the annexation of the four Ukrainian regions of Lugansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhia in September 2022 and that of Crimea in 2014 – has rejected any settlement that would involve ceding these territories.
“It is obvious that steps [comme la réunion de Malte des 28 et 29 octobre] have absolutely no future, they are just counterproductive”said Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova on Thursday, calling the meeting“deeply biased and anti-Russian event, which has nothing to do with a peaceful settlement of the Ukrainian crisis”.
Organizers are hoping for a joint declaration from the Malta summit, after the previous two meetings ended without the adoption of such a document.
Among the participants are the United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom, supporters of kyiv, as well as Turkey, which offered itself as mediator between Ukraine and Russia.
These discussions, which notably concern respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, have the particularity of seeing the participation of countries allied to Russia or which have refrained from condemning its attack, such as Brazil, South Africa, and India. China has not confirmed its presence even though it participated in the last meeting. Representatives from countries as diverse as Australia, Bahrain, Chile, Georgia, Japan, Kuwait, Mexico, Qatar and Thailand are also expected, some via video link.
The discussions will focus on five key areas: food security, energy security, nuclear security, humanitarian issues and the restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, said the head of the Ukrainian presidential administration, Andriy Yermak.
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