UNSC president sees hope for ‘breakthrough’ in efforts to stop Ukraine war

United Nations, March 4 (IANS/WISHAVWARTA) Security Council President Christina Markus Lassen sees hope for a “breakthrough” in efforts to stop the Ukraine war.

Denmark’s Permanent Representative Lassen, who took over the Council presidency on Monday, said, “There’s hope for some kind of breakthrough in the peace process or at least a session of hostilities”.

“It’s important to note that nobody wants peace more than, Ukraine, so of course, we’ll do whatever we can to support that”, she said at a news conference. But she added that it should conform to the UN Charter.

She said that she hoped it would be under “terms that do not reward the aggressor and punish the victim” and will be “respecting Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignties and independence”.

She said the five European countries abstained on the Council resolution last week moved by the US on Ukraine because they wanted to be sure “peace is on the right terms” and “Ukraine’s right to be respected”.

“It’s more a question of how do we get there [to peace] than the end goal that I think we all agree on”, she said.

In the context of the recent differences with the US on Ukraine, she said Europe has to be more self-reliant and referred to Sunday’s European Summit in London where the leaders showed strong support for Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky who had been snubbed by Trump on Friday.

Lassen said that while Western Europe has a very strong Transatlantic alliance with the US, “within that alliance, Europe has to stand more on its own feet”. That is “what we saw yesterday at the summit in London”, she said.

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