Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba attended the 2022 ASEAN Summit where he requested member countries to take a firmer stance against the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Last week Ukraine signed ASEAN’s Treaty of Amity and Cooperation, which is a symbolic peace treaty that was established in 1976. Signatories of the treaty commit to “mutual respect for the independence, sovereignty, equality, territorial integrity and national identity of all nations”.
At the event, Mr. Kuleba said that Russia’s use of brute force in Ukraine is not just an attack on a sovereign nation but also “on the UN Charter and the principles of territorial integrity, sovereignty and non-use of force”.
He added, “I’m absolutely confident that none of the ASEAN countries is interested in seeing any country following the pattern of behavior of Russia here in Asia.”
The foreign minister also met individually with leaders from Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand to seek their support on this issue. He requested ASEAN nations to not maintain a viewpoint that, “we’re distancing ourselves from this because we want to be friends with both Russia and Ukraine, so we’re not going to do anything at all.”
“I believe this goes against very basic, very, very fundamental and genuine interests of these countries too,” Mr. Kuleba said. He also informed that he was keen on meeting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi but he did not attend the summit.
Earlier this month, the ASEAN Summit host Cambodia had proposed hosting peace talks between Ukraine and Russia but that plan fell through the cracks. ASEAN members also didn’t reach a consensus on whether Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy could deliver a video statement during the ASEAN Summit.
Cambodia and Singapore are the only ASEAN countries who had earlier supported a UN resolution condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
