{"id":240889,"date":"2023-08-07T12:00:30","date_gmt":"2023-08-07T11:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=240889"},"modified":"2023-08-03T09:09:38","modified_gmt":"2023-08-03T08:09:38","slug":"putin-says-african-proposal-could-be-basis-for-peace-in-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2023\/08\/putin-says-african-proposal-could-be-basis-for-peace-in-ukraine\/","title":{"rendered":"Putin Says African Proposal Could Be Basis for Peace in Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"

The proposal floats a series of possible steps to defuse the conflict, including a Russian troops pullback from Ukraine.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin speaks during a press conference following the Russia-Africa summit in Saint Petersburg on 29 Jul 2023.
Sergei Bobylyov\/TASS Host Photo Agency via Reuters<\/p><\/div>\n

30 Jul 2023 – <\/span><\/em>Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that an initiative presented by African leaders<\/a> could be a basis for peace in Moscow\u2019s war on Ukraine but claimed that attacks from Kyiv made a cessation of hostilities \u201cvirtually impossible\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Russian leader made the comments in Moscow on Saturday after meeting leaders from Africa in Saint Petersburg<\/a> and hearing their calls for Russia to move ahead with their plan.<\/p>\n

The proposal, according to the Reuters news agency, floats a series of possible steps to defuse the conflict, including a Russian troop pullback, removal of Russian tactical nuclear weapons from Belarus, suspension of an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant against Putin<\/a> and sanctions relief.<\/p>\n

Details of the proposal have not been publicised.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are things that are virtually impossible to implement, like a ceasefire \u2013 but Ukraine is advancing, they\u2019re on a strategic offensive, how do we hold our fire when they\u2019re advancing on us?\u201d Putin told reporters.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis can only be a bilateral initiative. But the [African] initiative in my opinion can become the foundation of certain processes towards a peaceful resolution, just like China\u2019s initiative, there\u2019s no competition or contradiction here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Kyiv, too, has previously poured cold water on the African plan.<\/p>\n

The Chinese proposal, unveiled earlier this year, is a 12-point position paper that calls for a de-escalation and eventual ceasefire in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, has rejected the idea of a ceasefire now, which would leave Russia in control of nearly a fifth of his country and give its forces time to regroup after 17 grinding months of war.<\/p>\n

He has also said that peace talks would require Moscow to withdraw its forces from occupied Ukrainian territory, something Russia has said is not negotiable.<\/p>\n

Commenting on the subject of peace talks, Putin said, \u201cWe did not reject them\u201d, but that \u201cin order for this process to begin, there needs to be agreement on both sides\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Russian president also appeared to downplay not attending an economic summit<\/a> in South Africa\u2019s Johannesburg next month amid the controversy over the ICC arrest warrant, issued over war crimes relating to the abduction of children from Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Asked about his reasons for not going, Putin told Russian journalists that he was \u201cin contact with all colleagues\u201d from the bloc of developing economies known as BRICS, and said he did not \u201cthink my presence at the BRICS summit is more important that my presence here, in Russia, right now\u201d.<\/p>\n

He added that he will take part via video link and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will travel to the August 22-24 gathering, which will bring together leaders from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.<\/p>\n

South Africa is a signatory to the Rome treaty that formed the ICC and is therefore obligated to arrest the Russian leader if he sets foot on South African territory.<\/p>\n

South Africa had given strong hints<\/a> that it would not arrest Putin if he attended but had also been lobbying for him not to come to avoid the problem.<\/p>\n

Although Moscow dismissed the warrant, Putin has not travelled to a country that is a signatory to the ICC treaty since his indictment. Analysts have said that the public debate about whether the Russian leader would travel to South Africa was in itself an unwelcome development for the Kremlin.<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 aljazeera.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

30 Jul 2023 – The proposal floats a series of possible steps to defuse the conflict, including a Russian troops pullback from Ukraine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":240890,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[195],"tags":[131,2628,442,818,278,961,70,92,481],"class_list":["post-240889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-conflict-resolution-mediation","tag-africom","tag-conflict-mediation","tag-conflict-transformation","tag-proxy-war","tag-russia","tag-ukraine","tag-usa","tag-violent-conflict","tag-warfare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240889"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240889\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":240891,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240889\/revisions\/240891"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}