Saudis to host Ukraine peace talks as effort to woo global south

Washington and Europe hope the talks, which exclude Russia, can lead to international backing for terms favouring Kyiv.

An apartment block ablaze after a missile strike in Dnipro on Friday. Picture: AFP

Saudi Arabia is set to host peace talks among Western countries, Ukraine and key developing countries, including India and Brazil, next weekend, as Europe and Washington intensify efforts to consolidate international support for Ukraine’s peace demands.

According to diplomats involved in the discussion, the meeting would bring senior officials from up to 30 countries to Jeddah on Saturday and Sunday. It comes amid a growing battle between the Kremlin and Ukraine’s Western backers to win support from major developing countries, many of which have been neutral over the Ukraine war.

Ukraine and Western officials hope the efforts could culminate in a peace summit later this year where global leaders would sign up to shared principles for resolving the war. They hope that those principles could frame future peace talks between Russia and Ukraine to Kyiv’s advantage.

A summit this year, however, wouldn’t include Russia, which has shunned any serious talk of peace and has held onto maximalist demands for any settlement, including annexation of territory its forces don’t currently control.

It comes as the war appears to have reached a stalemate, with neither side able to gain meaningful territory in recent months.

The meeting follows on from a gathering of senior officials in Copenhagen in late June, attended by Brazil, India, Turkey and South Africa. US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan dialled into the meeting. Ukraine and several major European countries also participated.

For the Jeddah meeting, Saudi Arabia and Ukraine have invited 30 countries, including Indonesia, Egypt, Mexico, Chile and Zambia. It is not yet clear how many will attend, although the countries who took part in the Copenhagen talks are expected to do so again.

The UK, South Africa, Poland and the EU are among those who have confirmed attendance.

For now, Mr Sullivan is expected to attend, according to a person familiar with the planning.

There was no immediate comment from the National Security Council. Saudi Arabia is trying to play a larger role in diplomacy on Ukraine, after the White House accused it last year of siding with Russia in keeping oil prices high — thus bolstering Moscow’s finances. It has facilitated the exchange of prisoners of war and hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at an Arab summit in May.

Western diplomats said that Saudi Arabia was picked to host the second round of talks partly in hopes of persuading China, which has maintained close ties to Moscow, to participate.

Riyadh and Beijing maintain close ties. Earlier this year, China helped negotiate a thaw between Saudi Arabia and its regional foe, Iran, months after the Saudis hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping at an Arab summit.

Despite claiming to be working on a peace plan for Ukraine, China sat out the Copenhagen meeting. People involved in the talks said Beijing isn’t expected to attend but that it hasn’t ruled it out.

The Saudi meeting comes at a critical moment in the fight between Russia and Ukraine’s Western backers for global support.

The US and Europe have pushed for a global condemnation of Russia’s decision earlier this month to pull out of a UN-brokered deal aimed at easing the export of grain from Ukraine, a move that pushed grain prices up for poor countries.

At a meeting this month, top European and Latin American leaders expressed “deep concern on the ongoing war against Ukraine”. Last month, the US and India concluded defence deals aimed at weaning New Delhi off arms purchases from Russia.

Meanwhile, Mr Putin hosted African leaders in St Petersburg last week, during which he pledged to provide free grain supplies for a half dozen African nations.

European officials had hoped to narrow the differences between Ukraine and the developing countries on how to end the war quickly enough to hold a peace summit by the fall. But that timing appears ambitious.

At the Copenhagen meeting, there was a large gap in views between Ukraine and most of the attending developing countries, according to people involved. Ukrainian officials pushed participants to back Mr Zelensky’s existing 10-point peace plan, which calls for the return of all occupied territory and demands that Russian troops exit Ukraine before peace talks can start.

The developing country group made it clear they were open to discussing shared principles but wouldn’t sign onto Ukraine’s plan.

While the US and Europe are publicly backing Kyiv’s peace plan, Western officials say it is clear the global talks will only succeed if they are crafted around a set of widely shared international principles, like the UN charter, which stands up for territorial sovereignty and political independence and condemns acts of aggression and the threat and use of force.

A senior European diplomat said Ukraine was still pushing for international backing on issues that developing countries won’t accept — for example, a broadening of sanctions on Moscow. India, Turkey, Brazil and China have eschewed Western sanctions on Moscow.

The Wall Street Journal