EUROPE/RUSSIA - Father Canetta: a new treaty to end the war in Europe

Tuesday, 31 May 2022 peace   wars  

Milan (Agenzia Fides) - "To try to unblock a very difficult negotiation, it is necessary to start from a proposal that can represent a starting platform. The proposal could be that of a new treaty, like the "Collective Security Treaty Organization" (CSTO), stipulated between Russia and certain countries of the former USSR": this is the proposal relaunched by Agenzia Fides by Fr. Edoardo Canetta, former Vicar Apostolic of Asia Centrale, and former professor at the Institute of Diplomacy of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Father Canetta was a missionary in Kazakhstan for twenty years (including five as Vicar General of Central Asia), where he taught at the University of Karaganda, then at the Gumylyov Eurasian National University in Astana. Father Canetta, currently parish priest in Milan and professor at the Ambrosian Academy in Milan, is active in welcoming Ukrainian refugees and today involves his community in the prayer of the Rosary for peace with Pope Francis. Fr. Canetta notes to Fides: "A new pact to end the war in Europe should involve Russia, Ukraine and certain guarantor countries (such as Turkey, India, France, Israel or others); it could consider the demilitarization of Crimea and Donbass, with the presence of military forces of the guarantor countries mentioned above.These countries would ensure, for a certain number of years, a kind of "protectorate" which would be dissolved later by a referendum which would let the people decide whether they belong to Ukraine or to the Russian Federation. Of course, the local administrative and police functions would remain in the hands of the authorities of the territory". This solution, like any other, he notes, would have its difficulties, but perhaps it is possible to at least try to put it on the table and activate a process of negotiation, to seek an outcome that abandon violence and war, harbingers of destruction and death". The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) was born in 2002, as an institutional development of the Collective Security Treaty, a defensive military alliance concluded in 1992 between Russia and a number of countries of the former Soviet Union (Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan). The Treaty affirms its members' commitment to renouncing the threat or use of force to settle disputes between them and introduces a solidarity clause for possible acts of external aggression. (PA) (Agenzia Fides, 31/5/2022)


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