Pinchuk Foundation to organize debate on guarantees for Ukraine at Munich Security Conference in Feb 2017
KYIV. Jan 13 (Interfax) - Participants in the Munich Security Conference in mid-February will discuss possible direct security guarantees for Ukraine at a special event that the Viktor Pinchuk Foundation will organize for the first time as part of the forum.
"The Munich Security Conference in February will include the first special Ukrainian event in its history, which we will organize. Attended by top global specialists, its participants will discuss precisely what kind of international guarantees can be extended for our country," Pinchuk said in an article on the Ukrayinska Pravda online publication on Friday.
As the likelihood of Ukraine's accession to NATO is currently non-existent, it makes sense to focus as much effort as possible on receiving security guarantees from the West as an alternative to NATO membership, Pinchuk said.
"Many are interested in Ukraine's neutrality in the short- and mid-term. It's not so much us as our Western partners who should agree to a compromise here. And if they want stability and peace, they will agree to it," he said.
Moreover, Ukraine should view the so-called Budapest precedent as its trump card, Pinchuk said. "The West, which failed to honor its legal obligations to us and which didn't give us even a pistol in exchange for a nuclear bomb, remains at least morally indebted to us. We should demand significant financial and technical assistance to reinforce our defense capability and also direct security guarantees from the West," he said.
Pinchuk said he could not specify exactly what these guarantees could be. "There have been no such precedents in the world. But expert and intellectual efforts should be focused as much as possible on finding an answer to the main question: what international guarantees we need. And then we should brace to ensure these guarantees," he said.
Pinchuk insisted that all possible diplomatic and political resources should be applied to this end.
The Munich Security Conference is an annual forum that has been held in Munich since 1962. Before 1993, it was called the International Conference for Military Issues (Internationale Wehrkundebegegnung) and was held under the aegis of the Christian-Social Union. Since 1998, the conference has been financed by the German government. In 2017, it will be held from February 17 through 19.
Wolfgang Ischinger, who has been the chairman of the Munich Security Conference since 2008, joined the Yalta European Strategy, which was founded by Pinchuk in 2004, in February 2016.
Ischinger started his career at the office of the UN secretary-general in 1973. From 1975, he worked for the Federal Republic of Germany's diplomatic service. His positions included those of secretary of state for foreign affairs and German ambassador to the U.S. and the United Kingdom.
Apart from this, Ischinger represented the European Union in Troika's negotiations on Kosovo's future in 2007. In 2014, as a representative of the OSCE chairperson-in-office, Ischinger was also among the moderators of a number of roundtable discussions in Ukraine to facilitate broad national dialogue.