Geneva plans Ukraine peace conference - without Russia
The Swiss government on Wednesday announced that it would host a high-level peace conference for Ukraine in mid-June, but said Russia would not attend. The conference will take place at the luxury Burgenstock resort near the central city of Luzern on June 15-16 and would be hosted by Swiss President Viola Amherd. "This is a first step in a process towards a lasting peace," she told reporters in Bern. Russia quickly slammed the planned conference and Amherd acknowledged that "we will not sign a peace plan at this conference", but said she hoped "there will be a second conference". "We hope to start the process." Russia, which has been at war with Ukraine since February 2022 and is putting Ukrainian forces under new pressure, condemned the event as being part of a scheme by US President Joe Biden's Democratic Party ahead of this year's presidential election. "American Democrats, who need photos and videos of events that supposedly indicate their project 'Ukraine' is still afloat, are behind this," the state-run TASS news agency quoted foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova as saying. Switzerland hopes to get Russia into later talks. The government said in January, during a visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, that it wanted to organise a peace conference this year. The government said in a statement on Wednesday that it "took note of the results of the exploratory phase of the high-level conference on peace in Ukraine". It determined that "there is currently sufficient international support for a high-level conference to launch the peace process." In January, Zelensky spoke of a "summit" without any Russian participation. But traditionally neutral Switzerland wants to find a way to bring the Kremlin into the talks, and has been battling to attract China and other emerging powers. Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis also tried to woo Moscow, meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in New York in January. (AFP)