Kyiv: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said negotiations were ongoing with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and Switzerland regarding the second summit on peace in a conversation with Indian journalists shared on his social media on Sunday. Zelenskyy also said he had told Prime Minister Narendra Modi that he would support India hosting the second summit on peace as Kyiv hopes to find a host among the countries in the Global South.
"But I want to be frank, and this applies not only to India but to any state that would be positive about hosting a second summit. We will not be able to hold a peace summit in a country that has not yet joined the peace summit communique," Zelenskyy said. The Ukrainian president added that he discussed all of the points from the communique and previous peace summit during the meeting with Modi on Friday.
What India says
PM Modi, who was on a single-day visit to Kyiv, told Zelenskyy that New Delhi had not been neutral or an indifferent bystander during the Russia-Ukraine conflict and was always on the side of peace.
PM Modi reiterated India's position that the conflict can be resolved only through dialogue and diplomacy and that New Delhi is ready to make proactive contributions towards efforts for peace.
Ukraine has repeatedly said it wants the war to end but on Kyiv's terms, not Russia's. Ukraine has been pushing to hold a second international summit later this year to advance its vision of peace and involve representatives from Russia. The first summit, held in Switzerland in June, pointedly excluded Russia, while attracting scores of delegations, including one from India, but not from China, the world's second-largest economy.
Notably, PM Modi's first-ever visit to Ukraine followed a trip to Moscow in July that elicited fierce criticism from Zelenskyy who said it was a "huge disappointment and a devastating blow to peace efforts to see the leader of the world's largest democracy hug the world's most bloody criminal in Moscow on such a day."
(With inputs from agency)
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