Biden invites Zelenski to his great summit of the democracies of the world

The Government of the President of USA, Joe Bidenhas invited the Ukrainian president, Volodimir Zelenskyto participate in his great summit of world democracies to be held next week in Washington and other world capitals.

Rob Berschinski, one of Biden’s main advisers, confirmed at a press conference that Zelenski will participate and explained that the war in Ukraine will be one of the main topics of the meeting, along with debates on the economy, corruption and the fight against authoritarianism. among others.

Specifically, Zelenski will speak virtually on the first day of the summit, Tuesday March 28, and will talk about his vision of a “just and lasting peace” for Ukraine, according to the meeting schedule released by the State Department.

The Ukrainian leader will speak in a panel moderated by the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, and in which foreign officials from a “regionally diverse group of countries” so that there are different perspectives on the table, according to the State Department.

The US has not revealed the country of origin of those foreign ministers and neither Russia nor China are among the guests. This is the second edition of the summit of democracies held by the Biden government, who first proposed this idea when he ran for the 2020 presidential elections.

The first edition, in which Ukraine was also invited, was held between December 9 and 10, 2021 and revolved around issues such as the fight against authoritarianism, the fight against corruption and the promotion of respect for rights humans, but ended without concrete announcements.

The United States is expected to use this second to announce “significant investments” of money in programs to protect human rights, said Berschinski, director of democracy and human rights in the National Security Council of the White House, in charge of foreign policy.

The objective will be to deepen one of the principles that guide Biden’s foreign policy: the idea that the democracies of the world are at a turning point in which they must demonstrate to their citizens that they are the best form of government and thus stop the advance of authoritarianism. The hosts of this summit will be the United States, Costa Rica, South Korea, Zambia and the Netherlands.

On the second day of the meeting, on Wednesday the 29th, the leaders of these countries will begin the day with some statements together with the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, and then each one will lead a session focused on a specific topic.

Biden will speak about how democracy can tackle global problems; while the president of Costa Rica, Rodrigo Chaves, will focus on the role of democracies to generate equality, detailed the State Department.

Summit sessions will be held in Washington, but also in the capitals of each of the host countries. The events in Costa Rica will be focused on promoting the role of youth in democracy and will have the in-person participation of senior officials from around the world, including the US ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who will lead the US delegation to that country.

In total, 120 governments have received invitations to the summit. Of them, eight had not been invited in the previous edition, but the United States has decided to include them due to the advances they have made at a democratic level. Among those new guests are Honduras, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mauritania and Mozambique.

Source: EFE