KYIV, Ukraine
Ukraine on Sunday slammed Pope Francis's call to negotiate with Russia two years into its invasion, vowing "never" to surrender after the pontiff said Kyiv should "have the courage to raise the white flag".
The 87-year-old Catholic
leader fuelled anger in Kyiv this weekend after he said in an interview that
Ukraine should negotiate with Russia, which has seized large swathes of its
territory in the offensive.
It is not the first statement
by Pope Francis during Moscow's invasion that has caused outrage in Ukraine.
The pontiff has also made statements slammed by Russia.
"Our flag is a yellow and
blue one. This is the flag by which we live, die, and prevail. We shall never
raise any other flags," Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said.
He was responding to the
Pope's interview to Swiss broadcaster RTS in which the Catholic leader raised
the prospect of surrender -- two years after Kyiv has battled Russian forces on
its territory.
"I believe that the
strongest are those who see the situation, think about the people, and have the
courage to raise the white flag and negotiate," Pope Francis said in an
interview the Vatican said was conducted in early February.
In a sign of how angered Kyiv
was, Ukrainian officials compared the statement to some of the Catholic church
collaborating with Nazi Germany in World War II.
"At the same time, when
it comes to the white flag, we know this Vatican strategy from the first half
of the 20th century," Kuleba said, calling on the Holy See to "avoid
repeating the mistakes of the past".
Ukraine's ambassador to the
Vatican, Andrii Yurash, went further by comparing the Pope's negotiation
suggestion to talking to Adolf Hitler:
"(The) lesson is only one
-- if we want to finish war, we have to do everything to kill (the) Dragon!"
he said on social media.
After the interview was aired,
Francis offered fresh prayers for "martyred Ukraine", as Vatican
officials said his call was simply intended to end fierce fighting.
On Saturday evening, the
Vatican issued a statement insisting the pope's use of the phrase "white
flag" -- a widely used sign of surrender on the battlefield -- was
intended to mean "a cessation of hostilities, a truce reached with the courage
of negotiation".
But the pontiff's words were
widely understood as a call for surrender and slammed by some Western
diplomats.
"Russia is the aggressor
and breaks international law! Therefore Germany asks Moscow to stop the war,
not Kyiv!", said Bernhard Kotsch, Germany's envoy to the Vatican.
Kuleba said Kyiv hoped Francis
would visit his war-torn country after more than two years of battling its
bigger neighbour.
"We continue to hope that
after two years of devastating war in the heart of Europe, the Pontiff will
find an opportunity to pay an Apostolic visit to Ukraine to support over a
million Ukrainian Catholics, over five million Greek-Catholics and all Ukrainians,"
Kuleba said.
Francis drew criticism in the
first months after Russia's February 2022 invasion for failing to name Moscow
as the aggressor.
He was also criticised by
Ukraine last year when he allegedly praised Russian imperial leaders Peter the
Great and Catherine II.
No comments:
Post a Comment