The conflict between Russia and Ukraine is completely at a standstill, and in such a situation the parties should think about starting negotiations, Mexican Ambassador to Moscow Eduardo Villegas Mejias said in an interview with Russian media. He added that Mexico is ready to offer its mediation to find an appropriate platform for the negotiations.
According to Mejias, the start of negotiations in itself will already mean 80% success on the way to the end of hostilities. “A very big problem is precisely to bring people to the negotiating table. Therefore, what outcome (from the current situation) can we see from Mexico? First of all, it is necessary, with all due respect to the combatant soldiers, to recognize exactly the situation in which they (the parties to the conflict) find themselves – recognition that this situation is completely at an impasse”, noted the ambassador.
Whatever feelings Russians and Ukrainians have for each other, we must try to find a dialogue, the diplomat urged. “We have to sit down and say: these are my conditions to stop this horror, to stop the violence. This is the only format to find a way out,” Mejias pointed out.
The diplomat also drew parallels between Ukraine and Russia’s struggles to find a compromise and the history of warring tribes in North America who came together for negotiations, but no one started the dialogue about them first. “They came, sat down and just looked at each other, because everyone understood that the first to speak lost. <…> And then one of them suddenly had a brilliant idea: he took out a pipe, poured some tobacco into it, lit it and handed it to his neighbour. And that is what we mean by the “peace pipe”. What is the function of this tube? It’s mediation: “I don’t want to talk to you, but through a third party, through an object, whatever it is, I can communicate with you,” said the diplomat.
Idea who offered its mediation by Mexican President López Manuel Obrador is precisely that figures such as the Pope or Indian President Narendra Modi can help provide assistance to both sides – both President Vladimir Putin and President Volodymyr Zelensyy, Mejias pointed out. .
Sending more and more new weapons to the war zone will do little to resolve the conflict, the ambassador believes. “Now they are trying to solve these problems with the help of weapons, but (after) 16 months of this armed conflict, it has become clear that with the help of weapons you can only delay the end of the hostilities – one month, two, three, one year, two years, five years. Each time, the weapons arrive, but (at the front, we see) very little progress in one direction or another,” said said Mejias.
While Mexico condemns Russia’s decision to start hostilities in Ukraine, the Latin American country opposes Western sanctions, Mejias said. “The only thing unilateral sanctions do is make the situation worse. We saw what happened in Cuba, and it’s our closest neighbors across the Gulf of Mexico. There was an attempt to change the regime (in Cuba) with the help of sanctions, but it had no effect – at least the effect that the sanctions were intended to achieve,” the diplomat explained.
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