Switzerland would be ready to host Russian President Vladimir Putin for any peace talks on Ukraine despite an existing arrest warrant for him from the International Criminal Court, Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis said yesterday.
Neutral Switzerland is a signatory to the ICC but Cassis told Swiss national broadcaster SRF that provided Putin was coming for peace purposes, the country could receive him.
“This has to do with our diplomatic role, with international Geneva as (the European) headquarters of the United Nations,” Cassis told the broadcaster.
French President Emmanuel Macron mooted Geneva as a potential location for Ukraine peace talks between Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy after a meeting between US President Trump, Zelenskiy and European leaders in Washington.
The ICC issued its warrant in 2023, just over a year after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, accusing Putin of the war crime of deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine.
Russia denies allegations of war crimes and the Kremlin, which did not sign the ICC’s founding treaty, has dismissed the warrant as null and void.
Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker also weighed in, saying his country supported any initiative leading to a just and lasting peace that protects Ukrainian and European security interests.
“As proud host of (the) OSCE and many other international organisations we stand ready to offer our good services,” he said on social media platform X.
Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said they spoke about missing children due to conflict.
Trump’s wife, Melania Trump, raised the plight of children in Ukraine and Russia in a personal letter to Putin, two White House officials said on Friday when Trump met Putin at a summit in Alaska. Trump hand-delivered that letter to Putin.
Trump and the European leader “have been discussing the massive worldwide problem of missing children,” the US president said on social media later, without mentioning any particular country in his post. “This is, likewise, a big subject with my wife, Melania.”
Ukraine has called the abductions of tens of thousands of its children taken to Russia or Russian-occupied territory without the consent of family or guardians a war crime that meets the UN treaty definition of genocide.
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