MOSCOW, April 13. /TASS/. Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov has revealed that a summit of UN Security Council permanent members cannot be held as a video conference that is rather an anti-crisis management element.
"The meeting was initiated by the [Russian] president as a visionary meeting and, naturally, the video conference format that is widely used now for crisis management does not possibly create the necessary atmosphere for such a visionary conversation, even more so for the heads of five [permanent] members of the [UN] Security Council," he suggested.
The Kremlin representative also highlighted that the idea of such a summit was not raised in the phone call between Russian and US Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump. "No, this [topic] was not discussed," Peskov said.
He then added, "There has not been any new reports on the meeting, the place and the dates."
Peskov also reported that Putin and Trump did not talk about extending the New START, a nuclear arms reduction treaty, in their phone call. "The [New] START topic was not raised," he underscored.
On January 23, Putin delivered a speech at the World Holocaust Forum when he proposed organizing a summit for the five permanent members of the UN Security Council in 2020. Lavrov earlier announced that China and France had already backed this initiative. Spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General Stephane Dujarric informed that the UN leadership would also welcome such a summit.