WASHINGTON, February 4. /TASS/. The United States is ready to participate in the summit of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, but thinks that this event should be preceded by active work on the ministerial level, US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland has told TASS in an interview.
She reiterated that the presidents of Russia and the United States, Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden, discussed the summit’s prospects during their 2021 meeting in Geneva.
"So President Putin raised this with President Biden in Geneva, and they agreed that we should try to work towards such a thing. You know, we had originally thought we would do it perhaps at the end of this year, but first, we need to do it at the ministerial level," Nuland said.
The five permanent members of the UN Security Council are Russia, the United Kingdom, China, France and the United States.
According to the diplomat, the January 31 UN Security Council meeting on Ukraine demonstrated the need to thoroughly prepare the potential summit.
"And as you know, we had a UN Security Council meeting where we were all present earlier this week and that turned into a shouting match. It wasn't productive. So we have work to do to get back to a common understanding of security and we want to do that through diplomacy. We want to avoid conflict," Nuland said.
The US diplomat did not comment on whether Biden was ready to attend a P5 meeting beyond the US borders, or viewed the UN headquarters in New York and the traditional General Political Debate of the UN General Assembly held every September as a more suitable venue.
"We are not there yet. We want to do things at the ministerial level. We did have a P5 ministerial last September. Again. We can do more work in that context, particularly if we are returning to diplomacy, returning to military de-escalation and all of these things and settling our problems," she said.
"You know, we always think that these kinds of big events for the UN or happen in New York, but it's obviously something that we can discuss if we get to that point where we are having a real conversation about diplomacy, de-escalation, arms control, these kinds of things," Nuland added.
While addressing the World Holocaust Forum in Israel on January 23, 2020, Russian President Vladimir Putin called for a summit of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. The initiative was supported by the remaining four permanent members - the United Kingdom, China, the United States and France. In his State of the Nation Address to the Federal Assembly on April 21, 2021, Putin said the leaders of the United Nations Security Council permanent member states could hold an in-person meeting when the coronavirus situation allows.