MUNICH, February 16. /TASS/. The situation in Ukraine, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the future of NATO and European security will be in the spotlight during the 60th Munich Security Conference to open on Friday.
The event will be opened by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
Among the forum’s high-ranking guests are US Vice President Kamala Harris, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Israeli President Isaak Herzog and Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh.
The EU will be represented by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell. Also, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky will attend.
Foreign ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) will meet on the sidelines of the event.
The Russian delegation will skip the event for the third consecutive year. In 2022, many participants refused to come due to the coronavirus pandemic and possible vaccines-related difficulties, but in 2023 and 2024 Russia was not invited over the conflict in Ukraine.
Evidently, participants of the conference will discuss military aid to Ukraine and the future of NATO in the light of Donald Trump’s recent remarks. The final day of the conference will be traditionally devoted to Middle East. This year’s debates will most likely revolve around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which escalated after last October’s attack by HAMAS.
The forum will run through Sunday, February 18. Additional security measures are in place in the city of Munich. The territory surrounding the Bayerischer Hof hotel, where the conference is taking place, is cordoned off. Only participants, media and support staff will be allowed to enter.
Around 20 rallies and demonstrations are scheduled to take place in the city on Friday and Saturday. Traditionally, various organizations protest against NATO and arms supplies in Munich as the conference is taking place.
The Munich Conference was founded in 1962 by German publisher Ewald von Kleist as a meeting of representatives of defense agencies of NATO member countries. Since 1999, it has been attended by politicians and military officers from Central and East European states, as well as business representatives. The forum traditionally hosts numerous informal and face-to-face meetings of politicians who discuss new initiatives in the field of security policy.
Traditionally, winners of the award for efforts toward peace and conflict resolution that was established in honor of the event’s organizer Ewald von Kleist, will be announced. The prize has been awarded annually since in 2009. Among its laureates are former German Chancellors Helmut Kohl and Angela Merkel, former French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing, and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
Russia’s participation in previous years
Russia participated in the forum since late 1990s. Its delegation was traditionally led by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Dmitry Medvedev, then the prime minister of Russia, participated in the event in 2016.
In 2007, Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed the Munich Security Conference with a speech devoted to foreign policy that had an international resonance. The speech focused on the vision of Russia’s place and role in the world considering the reality and threats of the time and the unacceptability of unipolar model in the current policy.
Putin pointed out then that unilateral, sometimes illegitimate actions had not solved a single problem, often generating new volatile areas though, whereas certain norms of some countries, first of all the US, crossed their borders. He noted that the international law should be universal. The Russian president also stressed the importance of a balance of interests in the security area, adding that the world could only develop on the basis of a multisided model.