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European foreign ministers have told US Secretary of State Marco Rubio they must have a say in any deal to end Russia’s war on Ukraine, as Washington-mediated peace talks get under way in Abu Dhabi.
Monday’s meeting in Paris of foreign ministers from the Group of Seven, which includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, gave Washington’s allies a chance to air their concerns with Rubio directly.
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It was Rubio’s first appearance before allies since last week’s US midterm elections, in which President Donald Trump’s Republican Party suffered stunning losses, and came amid concern about Washington’s growing rhetoric of a new security architecture for Europe.
“It is certainly neither necessary, nor right, nor appropriate to make a fundamental change” to Europe’s security architecture, said German Minister for Foreign Affairs Johann Wadephul after talks with Rubio.
“Europe belongs at this table. There can be no solution without Europe – only with Europe,” he added.
The Paris meeting coincides with the Abu Dhabi talks, scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday.
Wadephul said the Abu Dhabi talks must show whether Russia is “genuinely prepared to negotiate”, urging Moscow to “give up maximalist demands” and warning against any “negotiation show” in the United Arab Emirates capital.
He warned that against a background of continued Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, “we see no substantial contribution whatsoever toward negotiations gaining any serious momentum” on Moscow’s part.
Andrii Sybiha, Ukraine’s foreign minister, is set to join a session on Ukraine in Paris on Tuesday.
“No one has the right to decide our fate behind our backs,” Sybiha said before departing for the meeting.
G7 members have grown increasingly uneasy with the direction of US policy, including Washington’s scaling back of support for Ukraine and of sanctions on Russia, as well as its increasingly unilateral course.
Ministers from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, South Korea and Brazil are also attending the talks.
Iran is expected to feature prominently in the G7 talks as well.
Washington’s G7 allies have repeatedly voiced scepticism about the US and Israeli war on Iran and fear that further US military action could deepen the crisis rather than resolve it.
Al Jazeera’s Rebecca Collard, reporting from Paris, said the first day of talks had wrapped up with little clarity on US policy after the midterm elections.
“The second day of talks will include a session on instability in the Middle East,” she said.
“But there is something bigger up for discussion, too: The future of the multilateralism that has dominated relations among these countries for decades.”
