The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)
Switzerland’s peace bid
Switzerland will host a peace conference in mid-june as the first step towards ending the Russia-ukraine war. The Swiss have an old reputation for mediation, but the challenges for peace are formidable. Both Switzerland and Ukraine have said they consider
WITH THE Russia-ukraine war in its third year, Switzerland will host a peace conference at Bürgenstock on June 15-16, immediately after the June 13-15 G7 Summit in Italy.
Switzerland wants India to participate in the conference, to which some 120 countries will be invited at the level of Heads of State/ Government. It remains to be seen whether US President Joe Biden will be able to take time out in the middle of his re-election campaign, or whether Russia's President Vladimir Putin and China's President Xi Jinping, who have announced a “friendship without limits”, will attend.
Background of conference
Switzerland has taken the initiative at the request of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who visited Bern on January 15.
The idea is to “provide a platform for a high-level dialogue on ways to achieve a comprehensive, just and lasting peace for Ukraine based on international law and the UN Charter,” the Swiss government said. The conference will aim to “create a common understanding of the framework conducive to this goal and a concrete roadmap for the peace process”, it said.
Switzerland had earlier hosted a Ukraine Recovery Conference (URC) at Lugano in July 2022, and a National Security Advisors Meeting in Davos at the beginning of this year.
Swiss history of mediation
Neutrality is a foundational principle of Switzerland's foreign policy. It has had a tradition of being the protecting power since the 19th century when it looked after the interests of both the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Grand Duchy of Baden during the Francoprussian War of 1870-71. It acted as the protecting power during the two World Wars, and held nearly 200 protective power mandates during World War II.
Switzerland represented India’s interests in Pakistan and Pakistan’s in India between 1971 and 1976. Over the last two decades, Switzerland has been the protecting power between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the US and Iran, Russia and Georgia, and other pairs of mutually hostile governments.
The country also has a history of hosting negotiations or mediating in conflicts. It hosted talks between the government in Colombo and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in 2006, and took initiatives for peace in Nepal, and the Middle East.
In a 2012 paper titled Switzerland’s Experiences in Peace Mediation, David Lanz and Simon J A Mason wrote that since 2000, Switzerland has been engaged in approximately 20 peace processes in 15 countries and regions.
During the Russia-ukraine war, however, Switzerland has leaned towards Ukraine, and has joined the Western sanctions regime against Russia.
Goals of the conference
There has been some scepticism around the meaningfulness of the conference if it is held without President Putin. Russia is unlikely to participate in the first round of discussions, the President of the Swiss Confederation, Viola Amherd, had said in February. However, the conference is expected to be only the beginning of a process, and depending on the discussions and the course of the war, Moscow may get involved at a later stage.
“We’re not going to sign the peace deal at this conference,” Amherd has said. She called the meeting a “first step” that could lead to a second, follow-up gathering.
“It has to be clear from the start that Russia — sooner or later — has to be there,” Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis has said. “Now, it’s not mandatory that it’s there the first day. We could also imagine that on the first day, people might agree about how to better invite in Russia.”
But the challenge is formidable — “backbreaking work”, as Cassis said.
Zelenskyy has sought India’s support on a 10-point “peace formula”, which calls for the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine, release of prisoners, restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, and guarantees on nuclear safety, food and energy security.
For Russia, this formula is a non-starter. Moscow says it is “pointless”, and the peace effort is doomed to fail if it doesn’t take Russia’s interests into account. It has said it is willing to enter talks about Ukraine, but these must respect Russia’s security interests and reflect the “new realities” on the ground.
Russian forces control a little less than a fifth of Ukraine, and Moscow has claimed four Ukrainian regions as its own.
India, Russia, and Ukraine
Cassis discussed the summit with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar in New
Delhi on February 5. The Swiss had said early on that they considered the participation of the BRICS nations — Brazil, India, China, and South Africa — to be crucial. Cassis had travelled to China as well.
A Swiss foreign ministry spokesperson had told Bloomberg that it was “important to listen to the Global South, which will play a key role in the eventual inclusion of Russia in the process” — the reason “why we are in close contact with China, India, Brazil, South Africa, and Saudi Arabia”.
Since the outbreak of the war in February 2022, India has walked a diplomatic tightrope between Russia and Ukraine. It did not explicitly condemn the invasion, but it did call for an international probe into the Bucha massacre and expressed concern over nuclear threats issued by Russian leaders. India abstained from voting against Russia in several resolutions at the UN Security Council.
In September 2022, Prime Minister Narendra Modi told Putin that “this is not the era of war” — a formulation that found an echo at the G20 Summit statement in Bali in November 2022. At the G20 Summit in New Delhi in September 2023, India was able to forge a consensus, and get a joint declaration to which both the Us-led West and Russia, backed by China, agreed.
Modi has had at least five phone conversations with Putin and at least four with Zelenskyy since the beginning of the war. He has also met both leaders in person on the sidelines of multilateral summits.
During their telephone conversation last month, the Ukrainian President thanked India for its support for his country’s sovereignty, and said it would be important for Kyiv to see New Delhi attend the peace conference in Switzerland.
The Indian government has pitched itself as being supportive of any peace process, and is willing to play a role. New Delhi believes that it has the credibility of being a non-partisan player in the world.
“From the beginning of the Ukraine conflict, India has been emphasising on dialogue and diplomacy. India is ready to contribute to any peace process,” Modi has said.
For New Delhi, which aspires to be a permanent member of the UN Security Council, the conference presents an opportunity to shape the conversation at the global high table. It has positioned itself as a voice of the Global South, and had conveyed the impact of the war on the world’s developing and lessdeveloped countries to the world’s major economies during last year’s G20 summit.
The G7 Summit and the Switzerland conference will be held days after the results of the Lok Sabha elections are known on June 4.