VATICAN CITY
The Vatican said on Monday it was ready to "facilitate dialogue" between Russia and Ukraine to end the war, and called for an immediate stop to the "military attack".
Secretary of State Cardinal
Pietro Parolin (pictured), who ranks second only to the pope in the Vatican hierarchy,
told Italian newspapers that "despite the war unleashed by Russia against
Ukraine" he was "convinced there is always room for
negotiations".
Ukraine's ambassador to the
Vatican, Andriy Yurash, told Reuters in an interview on Feb. 14 that Kyiv was
open to a Vatican mediation of its conflict with Russia, calling the Vatican a
"very influential, very spiritual place for a meeting".
Parolin, the Vatican's top
diplomat, told Italian newspapers that dialogue was the only "reasonable
and constructive" way to work out differences.
"The Holy See, which in
these years has followed events in Ukraine constantly, discreetly and with
great attention, offering to facilitate dialogue with Russia, is always ready
to help both sides resume such a path," he said, according to a transcript
on the official Vatican News website.
"Above all the military
attack must stop immediately. We are all witnesses to its tragic
consequences," he said.
He suggested that this is what
Pope Francis told the Russian ambassador when he made a surprise visit to the
Russian embassy to the Vatican on Friday, in an unprecedented departure from
diplomatic protocol.
Parolin said the world was
witnessing events similar to those that preceded the start of World War Two, an
apparent reference to Germany's invasion of Poland in 1939.
Pope Francis on Sunday made an
impassioned call for humanitarian corridors to help refugees leave Ukraine and
said those who make war should not be deluded into thinking that God is on
their side.
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