Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has asked India and other countries to prepare for the second peace summit to end the Russia-Ukraine war "altogether," he told the UN Security Council on Tuesday. Zelenskyy called for united action to end Russia's war "without creating new and unnecessary divisions of the world into blocks or regional groups."
Unity always works for peace and we have to prepare the second peace summit to end the war altogether. And I invite all of you, all principal nations to join us in this process, all who truly respect the UN Charter. We invite China. We invite Brazil. I have already invited India. We are working with African nations, all of Latin America, the Middle East, Central Asia, Europe, the Pacific region, and North America. All.
The process, said the Ukrainian president, will "lead us to peace, to a just peace, a real peace, a peace that will last. All of us already know how to achieve it. We have the peace formula, we have the UN Charter, and we have all the strength needed to make it happen. What's needed is determination."
Zelenskyy Meets PM Modi in New York
This came days after Zelenskyy met Prime Minister Narendra Modi for their third bilateral meeting this year on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) session in New York on Monday. In that, the two leaders recalled PM Modi's recent visit to Ukraine and expressed satisfaction at the continued consolidation of bilateral ties. Based on this, the two talked about the issues concerning Ukraine and how to move forward in this quest for peace.
The Prime Minister emphasized that India is for a peaceful solution through diplomacy and dialogue as well as through engagement among all stakeholders and said the "clear, consistent, and constructive approach" adopted by it remains open to providing support in all ways possible to support the chances of a durable and peaceful resolution of the conflict.
"Very good meeting," Zelenskyy told news agency ANI on Tuesday. Notably, PM Modi had visited Ukraine on August 23, and it was the first-ever visit by an Indian Prime Minister to Ukraine since diplomatic relations were established between the two countries in 1992. Their meeting on the sidelines of UNGA was the third between the two leaders in a little over three months.
The first peace summit was focused more on what had happened. Meanwhile, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said in a press briefing while discussing discussions with the Ukrainian leader on a second peace summit that the talks covered a lot of issues related to finding a way forward. According to Misri, there were several things that had cropped up, including the peace summit held in Switzerland, ideas that floated after that, efforts that Ukraine is putting together on its own, and the prospect of a second peace summit that Ukraine has been talking about.
World leaders converged in Switzerland in June for the long-awaited peace talks, set to attempt to put pressure on Russia to end the war in Ukraine. Although it was said that Moscow's and Beijing's absence would blunt the potential effect of the discussion, presidents, prime ministers, and kings would be sitting in Geneva trying to persuade Russia to end its war in Ukraine. An Indian delegation, headed by Secretary (West) Pavan Kapoor, attended the opening and closing plenary sessions of the Swiss summit, but it did not identify with any communiqué document coming out of the high-level discussion on peace in Ukraine.
"India's participation in the Summit and earlier NSA/Political Director-level meetings arising from Ukraine's Peace Formula remained consistent with our approach to a comprehensive and durable solution to the conflict, based on dialogue and diplomacy. We remain of the view that such a solution requires genuine and practical engagement between the two parties to the conflict," Ministry of External Affairs said.
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