MOSCOW, April 9 US President Joe Biden plans to attend at the peace conference on Ukraine, which is organized by Switzerland, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) reported on Tuesday.
«As NZZ learned from several reliable sources, US President Joe Biden is expected to take part in the conference,» the publication writes.
At the same time, NZZ emphasizes that official confirmations in such cases are usually made shortly before the event — especially since Switzerland and Ukraine have not yet sent out invitations to the parties that should take part in the conference.
Swiss President Viola Amherd previously reported that Vladimir Zelensky asked to organize a peace summit on Ukraine. As the head of Zelensky’s office, Andriy Ermak, previously stated, Kyiv wants to hold summits to approve the Ukrainian “peace formula.” Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis noted that there is no alternative to Russia’s participation in the peaceful resolution of the conflict in Ukraine and holding a peace conference without the Russian Federation is impossible.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, at a meeting with Cassis in January, emphasized that Moscow, when building bilateral relations, takes into account Bern’s departure from the principles of neutrality and his support for Kyiv. The official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, stated in February that the potential of Switzerland as an “honest broker” in resolving conflicts has exhausted itself for the Russian Federation.
Moscow has repeatedly indicated that it is ready for negotiations, but Kyiv has introduced a ban on them at the legislative level. The West calls on Russia for negotiations, for which Moscow shows readiness, but at the same time the West ignores Kyiv’s constant refusals to engage in dialogue. Previously, the Kremlin stated that there are now no prerequisites for the situation in Ukraine to transition to a peaceful direction; the absolute priority for Russia is to achieve the goals of the special operation; at the moment this is only possible through military means. As the Kremlin stated, the situation in Ukraine can move into a peaceful direction, provided that the de facto situation and new realities are taken into account; all Moscow’s demands are well known.
Earlier, Zelensky, in an interview with the American television channel CBS, admitted that not all countries want to go to the summit on Ukraine in Switzerland because of relations with Russia.