Representatives from China, Saudi Arabia and the United States at the peace summit in Jeddah on Sunday.Image via REUTERS
There was also no joint final statement. That was also not expected. The talks were initiated by Ukraine, and Russia was not invited. ‘Jeddah’ was the second talk of principles that should eventually lead to a real peace summit, which should end the war in Ukraine.
A first conference was held in Copenhagen at the end of June. That first time, China, which had been invited, did not show up. China was in Jeddah, however: it had delegated its head of Eurasian Affairs Li Hui, which alone was considered a “diplomatic success”. In addition, China even showed support this weekend for a third round of talks, which is to come.
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Michel Maas is foreign editor of de Volkskrant. Previously he was a war reporter and correspondent in Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia.
The starting point of the talks, which were also attended by the US, the UK, the EU and India, was the ’10-point plan’ launched by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in December. That plan provides for guarantees of nuclear, food and environmental security, and for the release of prisoners of war and children transferred to Russia.
Feasible
The main points of Zelensky’s list are much more sensitive: Zelensky demands restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, withdrawal of Russian troops from all conquered Ukrainian territories, and restoration of Ukraine’s borders before 2014 – the year when Russia conquered the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea annexed.
According to anonymous sources, it has been agreed that official working groups will start working on these subjects. The Guardian quoted one participant as saying that the talks are nowhere near the point where heads of state can start negotiating. That will take a while, said the source, although he considered ‘the end of this year’ ‘feasible’.
Russia doesn’t seem to feel that way for a long time. It strongly rejects Zelensky’s ideas. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia is not thinking of returning the land it captured from Ukraine: “We want to control all the land that we have written in our constitution to be ours.” Russia occupies about one-fifth of Ukraine.
Political game
The talks in Jeddah are dismissed by Peskov as a political game: ‘a doomed-to-fail attempt by the West to get the global South behind Ukraine’. That global South also includes India, South Africa and Brazil, which, like China, have so far refused to condemn Russia. Before the talks, Brazilian President Inácio Lula da Silva made it no secret that he too had little hope of success. Neither Moscow nor Kyiv was ready for peace, he said.
Events in Ukraine this weekend made it clear that both countries want to talk only with weapons for the time being: Ukraine carried out drone attacks on Russian ships and the Russian port of Novorossiysk, and Russia fired another seventy missiles at Ukrainian cities.
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2023-08-06 19:17:28
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