Ukraine “does not trade with its territories,” Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko said on Friday. He was a harsh response to the president of BrazilLuiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who on Thursday declared that Kyiv should give up the Crimean peninsula, annexed by Russia in 2014, to stop the war.
“There is no legal, political or moral reason to justify the abandonment of a single centimeter of Ukrainian territory”, the spokesman for Ukrainian diplomacy wrote on Facebook, who however said he appreciated “the Brazilian president’s efforts to find a way to stop Russian aggression”.
“Any mediation effort to restore peace in Ukraine must be based on respect for the full and complete sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, in accordance with the principles of the UN Charter,” Nikolenko added.
Kiev keeps his refusal to negotiate with Moscow without the prior withdrawal of Russian troops of its entire territory, including the Crimea.
On Thursday, the Brazilian president had suggested Ukraine cede the Crimean peninsula to Russia to ease the end of the war, and said Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky “can’t want everything”.
“(Russian President Vladimir) Putin cannot keep the territory of Ukraine. Crimea can be discussed. But what he invaded again, he has to rethink. Zelensky cannot want everything either,” Lula said at a meeting with reporters in the Presidential Palace of Planalto, in Brasilia.
Mediation proposal
The Brazilian leader formulated at the end of January, shortly after taking office for the third time, a proposal for mediation in the Ukrainian conflict by a group of countries.
The president plans to present this project to his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, in Beijing next week, in a visit that was scheduled for late March but was postponed due to Lula suffering from pneumonia.
The Brazilian head of state said he was confident in the chances of success of this project and hoped that the group of countries could be created upon his return from China.
Celso Amorim, Lula’s top adviser on international affairs, met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on March 25 in the Russian capital, and they discussed the possibility of opening peace talks with Ukraine.
“To say that the doors are open (for peace negotiations) would be an exaggeration, but saying that they are closed isn’t true either,” said Amorim, foreign minister during Lula’s first governments (2003-2010), after the ‘encounter.
Russia has stated on several occasions in recent days that peace talks are impossible in the current context, and has ensured that it will maintain its military operation in Ukraine.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov insisted on Friday that peace talks on Ukraine should be based on a “new world order” free from US domination.
From Ankara, in Turkey, where he warned that Moscow could soon abandon the agreement on Ukrainian wheat without making progress on the export of Russian products, Putin’s Foreign Minister, Lavrov, clarified that for Russia “the negotiations cannot take place until our interests are taken into consideration”.
And he stressed that peace talks are possible only if they aim to establish “a new world order” that excludes US domination.
Source: agencies
Source: Clarin
Mary Ortiz is a seasoned journalist with a passion for world events. As a writer for News Rebeat, she brings a fresh perspective to the latest global happenings and provides in-depth coverage that offers a deeper understanding of the world around us.