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BRUSSELS, September 19 () –
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Thursday argued for Russia to be part of future peace negotiations in Ukraine, but insisted that the international community must learn the lesson of the 2014 Minsk Agreements and strengthen kyiv militarily.
“Military strength is a prerequisite for dialogue. We have to talk to our neighbours. Difficult as it may be, dialogue only works when it is backed by strong defences,” said the NATO political chief in a conversation with the German Marshall Fund think tank in which he reviewed his decade at the head of the military organisation.
Stoltenberg, who will hand over to former Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte on 1 October, has reflected on future peace negotiations in Ukraine, saying that he is willing to let Moscow sit down to negotiate, but stressing that Ukraine must be given the tools to achieve a positive outcome for kyiv.
“Russia must be part of future peace talks,” he said, stressing that the international community must learn from the failed Minsk agreements that sought to end the war in eastern Ukraine in 2014. “They did not bring peace,” he stressed.
For all these reasons, the NATO leader has argued that “any future agreement” must be backed by “strong military support for Ukraine and credible security guarantees to ensure a lasting peace.”
The Norwegian leader stressed that “the more credible long-term military support is”, the sooner the war in Ukraine will end. “By providing Ukraine with more weapons, we can make Vladimir Putin realise that he cannot get what he wants by force. Making it so costly that he has to accept that Ukraine has the sovereign and democratic right to persist as a sovereign and democratic country,” he said, reiterating his argument that the end of the conflict is coming closer with the delivery of more weapons to Ukraine.
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