Senior Ukrainian officials said that negotiations in Saudi Arabia to advance towards a peaceful resolution of the war with Russia had been successful on Sunday (local time), but Moscow referred to the gathering as a failed attempt to rally the Global South behind Kyiv.
The Jeddah negotiations, which came to a finish on Sunday, involved more than 40 nations, including China, India, the US, and several European nations, but not Russia.
The withdrawal of all Russian soldiers and the re-establishment of Ukrainian sovereignty over all of its territory were among the principles that Ukraine and its allies said were intended to serve as the foundation for peace.
Later this year, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a world summit should be held based on those principles.
The participants acknowledged the value of continued dialogue to open the door for peace, according to the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Media. Participants intended to create working groups to address certain issues brought on by the war, according to European officials.
Any chance of direct negotiations for peace between Kiev and Moscow 18 months after Russia invaded Ukraine seemed improbable as battles raged on the front lines.
Andriy Yermak, the chief of staff for Zelenskyy, said in a statement regarding the Jeddah negotiations, ‘We had very productive consultations on the key principles on which a just and lasting peace should be built.’
The conference, according to Sergei Ryabkov, deputy foreign minister of Russia, was ‘a reflection of the West’s attempt to continue futile, doomed efforts’ to rally the Global South behind Zelenskyy’s stance, state media reported on Sunday.
While the majority of Western nations have supported Ukraine, many other nations have resisted taking sides while wanting to put an end to a crisis that has hurt the world economy.
The involvement of China, which skipped a previous round of negotiations in Copenhagen and ignored pleas from the West to denounce Russia’s invasion, suggested a potential shift in its position but not a significant one, observers said.
Western diplomats have also stressed the importance of Saudi Arabia’s role in bringing together a larger group of nations to participate, exploiting its expanding connections with Beijing and its ongoing links with Moscow and Kyiv.
Yermak described the discussions in Saudi Arabia as ‘an extremely honest, open conversation’ in which various points of view were expressed.
All the nations in attendance, according to him, had shown a dedication to upholding international legal norms and respecting national sovereignty and inviolability.
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