United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has accepted Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invitation to attend the BRICS summit. However, he did not attend the “peace summit” on the war in Ukraine. Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry criticized Antonio Guterres for this on Monday.
‘This damages the reputation of the United Nations’
“The Secretary-General of the United Nations has rejected Ukraine’s invitation to participate in the first Global Peace Summit in Switzerland,” the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted on social media platform The Ministry of Defense said, “He accepted the invitation of the war criminal Putin to Kazan. This is a wrong choice and will not help the further development of the cause of peace. It will only damage the reputation of the United Nations.”
Guterres expresses desire to join BRICS
Earlier this month, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman said Guterres told Minister Sergey Lavrov at the United Nations General Assembly last month that he wanted to visit Kazan. But UN deputy spokesman Farham Haq said on Monday “his upcoming visit will be announced later” when asked whether Guterres would attend.
Peace summit to be held in June
A peace summit in the Swiss mountain resort in June brought together more than 90 countries to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and discuss ways to end the conflict. But Russia was not invited and rejected it as pointless.
Zelensky wants to organize second peace summit
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said he hopes to hold a second summit before the end of the year, but Russia has said it has no intention of attending. Guterres said at the time that although the United Nations was represented at the meeting hosted by Switzerland, he would not attend.
