Dutch FM appeals for "real, just, and lasting peace" for Ukraine as UN condemns Russia
At the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Thursday, 141 of the 193 member countries supported a resolution calling on Russia to stop fighting and withdraw from Ukraine. “The only way forward is to commit to the agreement we have made,” Dutch Minister Wopke Hoekstra of Foreign Affairs said at the meeting.
“By making sure that Ukraine survives as a state within its internationally recognized borders, and by working for a real, just, and lasting peace for Ukraine,” Hoekstra said. “That’s our common responsibility, and that is why the Netherlands is doing all it can to support Ukraine.”
One year ago today, Russia invaded Ukraine and started this war. “A war for which Russia, and Russia alone, is responsible,” Hoekstra said. “Over the past year, we’ve witnessed how Russia’s aggression is slowly destroying Ukraine. How innocent men, women, and children are being killed. How schools, hospitals, and entire neighborhoods are being wiped out. And how the Ukrainian people are enduring murder, rape, torture, and abduction.”
The Netherlands will do “everything in our power to ensure that Russia is held to account and that justice will be done,” Hoekstra said. The Netherlands supports the Ukrainian Prosecutor General and the International Criminal Court, will send two more forensic investigation teams to investigate war crimes in Ukraine, and will host a new International Center for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression.
The UN and the world must support Ukraine in its fight for peace. “We all want peace. And the road to peace is actually very simple,” Hoekstra said. “If Russia sends its soldiers home. Just send them home.”
The only way forward is to commit to the agreement we have made.
— Wopke Hoekstra (@WBHoekstra) February 24, 2023
By making sure that #Ukraine survives as a state within its internationally recognized borders, and by working for a real, just and lasting peace for Ukraine. https://t.co/DKmJfUCAUc #StandWithUkraine pic.twitter.com/HKi5CcbR7B
Only seven UN members voted against the resolution calling Russia to stop this war, NOS reports. They are Russia, Belarus, Syria, North Korea, Eritrea, Mali, and Nicaragua. The other 45, including China, abstained. The resolution is not binding and, therefore, has only symbolic value.
