Issues Regarding Ukraine Peace Summit: Outrage Among Nations

The 2024 Ukraine Peace Summit took place in Switzerland seeking to find a way to end the war between Russia and Ukraine. Surprisingly, Russia, the country at the center of the conflict, was not invited. About 100 delegations from different countries came to the meeting but many important countries did not sign the communique, the summit's outcome has led to disagreement and refusal from several important nations, causing controversy and highlighting deep political tensions. 

 

The Summit's Goals 

The main goal of the summit was to agree on important issues related to the conflict. At the end of the two-day meeting, they released a communique that speaks about a few important points: 

  

Nuclear Safety 

The communique emphasized keeping all nuclear plants safe, especially the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant because there are fears of a nuclear accident there. The document called for following safety rules set by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). 

  

Food Security 

 

The communique highlighted the importance of Ukrainian agricultural products for the world. It called for allowing these products to move freely to other countries. It also condemned attacks on merchant ships and ports in the Black Sea and Azov Sea as unacceptable. 

  

Humanitarian Concerns 

The document called for exchanging all prisoners and returning Ukrainians who were taken unlawfully. It focused especially on bringing back about 20,000 Ukrainian children taken by Russian authorities during the war. 

 

Countries in Agreement 

A total of 77 countries and 5 international institutions backed the communique showing wide international support. Important supporters included the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and others, as well as international organizations like the European Commission, the European Council, and the European Parliament. 

 

Countries that did not participate 

Despite most of the participant countries signed the communique, many others were not invited to take part in the summit, among them Russia, which is a main actor in this conflict besides Ukraine, in fact, only 77 of 193 countries that conforms the UN were invited, in the case of South America only Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Suriname, Ecuador, Peru, Chile Argentina and Uruguay participated. According to Switzerland, the reason why Russia was not invited is because Russia had declared repeatedly and publicly that it will not participate in the first summit.  

 

Disagreement and criticism 

In addition, many countries criticized the UK, EU and USA, the summit promoters, for already making a decision even before the summit took place. For instance, some countries like Colombia and Saudi Arabia expressed that a serious process of peace without Russia is pointless, and that the opinion African, Asian and South American countries of were not taken into account. 

In the countries that did not sign the communique were all the BRICS+ block, Brazil, India, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE, South Africa, Ethiopia, Armenia, Bahrein, Indonesia, Libia, Mexico and Thailand due to the reasons mentioned before.

 

In dark blue: Countries in agreement

In light blue: Countries in disagreement

 

 

 

Sources: Al Jazeera; Newtral; DW