The United Nations Secretary General, António Guterres, has considered as positive the ceasefire in Ukraine announced Thursday by the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, but has admitted that for now the conditions for a lasting solution to the conflict are not in place.
«If there can be conditions for people not to die at Christmas, that in itself is positive, but what matters fundamentally is a solution to the conflict and the solution is only possible on the basis of the UN charter and international law,» said Guterres, «At the moment, the conditions for an immediately effective peace solution have not yet been created, but I hope it will be possible,» he added, as reported by the Lusa agency, in statements on the sidelines of a ceremony in which he received the University of Lisbon Award for 2020.
Guterres’ spokesman, Stéphane Dujarric, explained in a press conference to journalists that the secretary general «has positively received the possibility that this sacred period be respected with the cessation of all hostilities», despite the fact that «this will not replace a just peace».
Dujarric also assured that the UN welcomes any effort to try to put an end to the war in Ukraine, in reference to the offer of help from the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, regarding possible peace talks.
Despite this, the spokesman has insisted that the secretary general «is realistic» about his view that there is no significant possibility of peace negotiations in the near future.
«We are not in any way ruling out any of these efforts that we are hearing about from different fronts. We don’t know if these efforts will lead to anything,» he replied.
«What we do know is that the end result we would like to see is the end of this war (…) and we are ready to help the parties reach that goal,» Dujarric concluded.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
