After President Gustavo Petro announced from Stockholm, Sweden, that he is suspending his participation in the conference on Ukraine, scheduled to take place this weekend in Switzerland, an event to which he had been invited, representative Andrés Forero criticized the decision.
The president told the media that they have found that the peace conference is aligned with the war. Furthermore, he stated that said event “it is not a free forum to discuss the paths to peace between Russia and Ukraine“, because, according to him, the “conclusions are already predetermined.
Gustavo Petro, president of Colombia
Photo:Presidency
“We are willing to participate in conferences that freely dedicate themselves to searching for the paths of peace and not to building blocks for war. We are not with war, we are with peace. So I won’t go to Switzerland. We head immediately to Colombia“, said.
After this decision, the Democratic Center congressman made his disagreement clear and spoke of the Government’s “double race” by condemning the main conflicts in the world: Ukraine-Russia and Palestine-Israel.
“Gustavo Petro is incapable of condemning Putin’s bloody and arbitrary invasion of Ukraine. By equating the invader with his victim, the president commits a great injustice. The double standard regarding his position on Palestine is evident,” he noted.
More explanations from the President
Furthermore, in a message published on his X account, President Petro stated that “the Swiss forum scenario is not a free forum to discuss the paths to peace between Russia and Ukraine,” since “its conclusions are already predetermined.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the Ukraine Peace Summit.
Photo:AFP
“Most of Latin America and the Colombian government do not agree with extending the war. “We did not sign up for political blocs for war,” he said.
“I ask Europe to debate the ways to shorten the war and not to extend it,” said the Colombian president, emphasizing that “dialogue between Russia and Ukraine is fundamental.”
In this regard, he urged the “establishment of a security zone without nuclear weapons that physically separates NATO from Russia, allowing the permanent security of the former Soviet and Eastern European nations,” and “absolute respect for the Russian and Ukrainian peoples interior of Ukraine and Russia.
In his message, the head of state reiterated that the Colombian government “will participate in every effort to build dialogue and peace between Russia and Ukraine and to stop the genocide against the Palestinian people.”
“It is international law that has to be reestablished and deepened and not the constitution of blocks of countries for war,” concluded the president of Colombia.
JUAN PABLO PENAGOS RAMÍREZ
Political Journalist EL TIEMPO.
