Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry Won’t Publish List of Crimean Platform Participants So Far

A number of world countries and organisations have confirmed the participation of their representatives in the first summit of the Crimean Platform, but the list of participants will be closed to the public yet.

“We decided not to make this information public so far because we already see the cynical statement by the Russian Federation claiming that the Crimean Platform is a threat to their territorial integrity. At first, our territory is occupied, and now we are told that this is a threat to their territorial integrity,” First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Emine Dzheppar said.

According to her, some participants in the summit, which is scheduled for 23 August this year, are known, and others will be named by the Foreign Ministry closer to the beginning of the event. There is already confirmation of the participation by the senior officials of the states. At the same time, a presence at the highest level – the leaders of countries – is the key point for Ukraine.

“There are a number of confirmations. For example, President of the European Council Charles Michel said that he would come to the summit. But we still prefer to keep all other confirmations secret,” the diplomat said.

She added that information about the event participants would, of course, be made public closer to the beginning of the summit.

In addition, Dzheppar said that Ukraine was preparing a declaration, which would be signed by the leaders-participants in the Crimean Platform, and thus the states would undertake to comply with the provisions set out therein.

“Countries sign off on every word, every comma. It becomes not just the position of Ukraine, it becomes the position of these countries. And, of course, the countries are very careful about these words [the wording of the document] because they imply the nature of their policy, they imply obligations,” the Deputy Minister emphasised.

As a reminder, many European and world leaders have already given prior consent to participate in the Crimean Platform summit. In particular, it became known that President of Slovakia Zuzana Čaputová will take part in the event. In addition, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky during a telephone conversation with President of Romania Klaus Iohannis invited him to Kyiv to take part in the inaugural summit of the Crimean Platform.

Bohdan Marusyak