UNITED NATIONS, December 27. /TASS/: Russia’s UN mission has responded to a proposal by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba to hold a "peace summit" at the United Nations by late February with Secretary-General Antonio Guterres acting as a mediator.
In an interview with the Associated Press, Ukraine’s top diplomat said Russia must face a tribunal before it could be invited to this event.
"[Ukrainian] Foreign Minister Kuleba said Ukraine aims for a certain ‘peace summit’ before the end of February where the UN chief could play the role of a ‘mediator’," Russian First Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Dmitry Polyansky wrote on Telegram late on Monday. "Secondly, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry issued a lengthy statement alleging that Russia had acquired membership of the UN Security Council and the UN illegally, while demanding that we be excluded from this body," he emphasized. According to Polyansky, nobody at UN Security Council meetings has reacted lately to what he called routine hysteria from Sergey Kislitsa, Ukraine’s permanent representative to the UN.
"If we try to put these two stories together, they are mutually exclusive so what sort of ‘peace summit’ can occur without Russia," Polyansky wondered. "Meanwhile, imagining one without Ukraine is very easy," he argued, adding that such a scenario would be a nightmare for all those Kulebas and Kislitsas whose initiatives, he said, have been bringing this scenario forward. This is what Polyansky described as "diplomacy 404."
The UN chief’s office told TASS that the secretary-general was ready to mediate the conflict in Ukraine, provided that all parties agree to this bid.
