Pope to Z-man - wave the white flag & negotiate

 

Pope Francis proposes a white flag to Ukrainian President Zelensky

Vatican City, Sunday, March 10, 2024

Pope Francis received Ukrainian President Zelenskyi in a private audience on Saturday and recommended him to wave a white flag as a sign of his willingness to negotiate, the correspondent of the Hungarian Peace Community reported on Sunday.

According to the leader of the Roman Catholic World Church, the truly brave and strong is the one who acts in the interest of his people, not the one who confronts a force that he cannot defeat. The Pope spoke in horror of the immeasurable destruction of human life and urged a negotiated end to the war instead of sacrificing more lives.

Father Matteo Bruni, Vatican spokesman, clarified the statement of Pope Francis regarding the white flag by saying that the Pope did not encourage the Ukrainian president to surrender, but to a ceasefire and negotiations.

As is known, in the first months of the Russian military intervention in Ukraine, Zelensky agreed on a peace treaty with Moscow and finalized an 18-point plan to restore peace. But in March 2022, under British-American pressure, he scrapped the agreement initialed by the two sides and decided to fight against Russia “to the last Ukrainian soldier”. Instead of a peace agreement, he established an independent “peace formula”, the essence of which is that Ukraine will only make peace with Russia when the last Russian military has left Ukraine.

The Holy See recognized the unrealistic nature of Zelensky’s peace formula a long time ago, and moved towards partial satisfaction of Russia’s security demands. To this end, he offered himself as a mediator between Moscow and Kiev, but his efforts were not crowned with success, because the West did not allow Zelensky to show a flexible attitude, and Russia refused to renounce its security demands against the West.

The Hungarian Community for Peace is trying to promote a negotiated settlement of the conflict in Ukraine on a civil diplomatic level. In its negotiations with the Papal Nuncio in Budapest and the Russian ambassador, the Peace Community started from the principle of the indivisibility of security and took the position that a just and lasting peace can only be created if neither side wants to assert its own security at the expense of the other.

The Hungarian Peace Community sees that the “white flag” advice given by Pope Francis to Zelensky paves the way for peaceful development. The question is whether Zelensky will accept it.

Edited by Magyar Békekör  (Hungary)