Global Voice
The aim of the Swiss peace initiative on the Ukraine conflict is to include Russia in the negotiation process, Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis has said.
“The goal of this initiative is to get Russia involved. The idea is that this peace conference will open up a process and a path, and Russia will definitely have to join that path. I already said in Davos in January that there would be no peace without the Russians. My position has not changed,” Cassis said in an interview with the SRF broadcaster.
On January 15, Swiss President Viola Amherd said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had asked Bern to host a peace summit on Ukraine. Kiev wants to hold summits to approve Zelensky’s “peace formula,” the Ukrainian presidency explained. Cassis stressed later that Russia needed to be part of any peace process related to the Ukraine conflict.
On Wednesday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Russia would not participate in the conference on Ukraine in Switzerland, even if it was officially invited.
On January 23, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov held a meeting with Cassis and told him that Moscow took into account Bern’s decision to move away from its neutrality principles and fully support Kiev. On February 3, Zakharova said Switzerland’s potential as an “honest broker” in conflict resolution had been exhausted, with Bern “blindly adhering” to US and EU policies.
