MOSCOW, August 16. /TASS/. Former Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl told TASS that currently holding a summit on Ukraine would make no sense.
"I don't think it's useful to have a big summit now, you know, at the top-to-top level, because trust is only built 'from below.' And like the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (the forerunner of today’s OSCE - TASS) in the 1970s, it started at a very technical level, at a military level, at a commercial level, but only in the very end did the responsible politicians win. And here it will take a long process to rebuild trust," she said.
Kneissl noted that any opportunity that is provided for opening up a dialogue is a good one because one should never close the channels for communication. "But the Ukrainians did it by passing a law saying they will not talk to the Russian government; it's the law, so to speak," she noted. "And it doesn't make much sense to meet among themselves without having all the participants in the conflict at the negotiating table. This is also undoubtedly true."
According to Vienna’s former top diplomat, anything that promotes dialogue is welcome, but it "should not be a waste of expectations," she said. "People who are in Donbass, people who are in Mariupol, they have expectations that they can live maybe a more peaceful life, so these expectations should not be wasted. And I think the technical, pragmatic approach should be from below, you understand," Kneissl stressed. "As in the case of the grain deal brokered by the UN and Turkey, it was not just about wheat and fertilizer exports."
In her view, the Black Sea Grain Initiative had the potential to give some momentum to certain technical aspects of the situation. "For example, to get one of these agricultural banks back on track; for example, to stabilize the market. And it didn't work," she added. "The Russian side is demanding that all the conditions are met, but you need these kinds of agreements and these kinds of technical approaches to create trust again. It's all about trust. And trust is not there for good reasons on many sides."
When asked whether the Ukrainian conflict would end with peace talks, Kneissl replied: "As I said, you know, before we talk about peace, which is a very noble word, we need to talk about a cease-fire. You have to talk about monitoring the cease-fire so that it becomes a real cease-fire. And then you can talk about peace."