• 6 months ago

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00:00First, a peace summit aimed at uniting global opinion on how to end Moscow's invasion in
00:05Ukraine has wrapped up in Switzerland.
00:08The first of its kind, the two-day conference in Bjergenstock, brought together leaders
00:12and delegations from more than 90 countries, including U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris.
00:18It was not, however, attended by Russia or China.
00:21A joint declaration released following the talks called for Ukraine's territorial integrity
00:27to be respected, and agreed that dialogue between all parties is needed for a lasting
00:32settlement.
00:33Well, for more, we can bring in our correspondent, Gulliver Craig, who's standing by for us in
00:37Kyiv.
00:38Gulliver, what are the main takeaways from this unprecedented summit, and can Ukraine
00:43call the summit a success?
00:45Well, I think on the basis of the fact that 56 countries sent their heads of state or
00:50government and 30 sent foreign ministers or a similar level, the number of countries represented
00:57is pretty impressive, though it's slightly less than half the world.
01:00If you take the 193 countries that have votes in the United Nations General Assembly.
01:05So it falls slightly short of Ukraine's ambition.
01:08And also, they very much wanted China to participate, and the Chinese refused to participate.
01:13And according to the Ukrainians, tried to persuade some countries not to participate.
01:17Nevertheless, the turnout is pretty strong.
01:20And it means that there will have been a lot of media coverage of Ukraine in all the countries
01:24that sent representatives.
01:26And you know, that includes most countries in Latin America, several of the biggest countries
01:31in Africa, countries that are far from Europe, where, of course, media coverage of what's
01:35going on in Ukraine is pretty constant anyway.
01:39Now they came up with this final declaration with somewhat watered down language compared
01:44to what Ukraine would have wanted, but not as watered down as had been mooted in the
01:49weeks leading up to the conference.
01:52Some early drafts were leaked that showed the language much more watered down than Ukraine
01:56wanted.
01:57But it doesn't talk about Russian aggression in Ukraine.
01:59It talks about Russia's war in Ukraine.
02:02And although it does call for the respect of territorial integrity, it does not say
02:06it straight in terms of something like Ukraine's territorial integrity must be restored.
02:11It talks more about the principles of respecting the United Nations Charter.
02:16You can see that every word in that declaration was chosen very carefully in order to try
02:21to get as many countries as possible on board.
02:24And nevertheless, only 80 of the 92 countries present signed it.
02:29Notably, Saudi Arabia, India, Brazil were among the big countries that did not sign
02:35that declaration, though Saudi Arabia has expressed an interest in hosting a second
02:39summit where everybody seems to be saying the Russian side could be invited.
02:44All right, Galiwet Craig reporting for us there from Kyiv.
02:48Thank you so much for that update.

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