Denmark is applying as a candidate to host a major international summit on the future of Ukraine. The meeting would be held in July.
Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said at a ministerial meeting in Brussels on Monday that Copenhagen would be happy to be the host country for the summit.
If Ukraine thinks the time has come for such a meeting, it will be fantastic. And then it is quite obvious that Denmark would like to be the host country for the meeting, says Løkke.
NTB-Ritzau reports.
Copenhagen current host city
He registers Danish interest after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj stated at the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan at the weekend that he would like to see such a meeting in July.
The newspaper Ukrainska Pravda writes that Copenhagen is a current candidate to be host.
Løkke emphasises that the decisive factor is not where the meeting is held, but that support is secured from countries outside the West such as China, India and Brazil, so that the pressure on Russia is increased.
We support Ukraine, and we have done so from day one. But if such a summit is to have added value and lead to progress, it must not just be a meeting between the countries that have always stood by Ukraine, says Løkke.
Positive signals from India
He emphasises that in Hiroshima, Zelenskyi met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the first time, who has so far refrained from criticising Russia. Modi has now made it clear that India has sympathy for Ukraine.
Løkke believes there may be signs of movement among countries in the global south that have so far kept their distance from the war in Europe. See also case below.
There are very few countries that directly support Russia’s war project, only a handful of dictatorship states voted in support of Russia in the UN General Assembly (Syria, North Korea, Eritrea and Belarus, plus Russia itself). 140 countries then voted to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, 38 abstained from voting. India was among the latter.
Nor did China vote in support of Russia, nor has it appeared as a clear supporter of the Russians since.
Løkke also points out that at the end of April, Zelenskyj had held a long telephone conversation with Chinese President Xi Jinping for the first time.
No further information has been given about the agenda for such a meeting, or which countries other than the G7 countries will possibly be involved.
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