(Savelletri Di Fasano) Prime Minister Justin Trudeau plans to shine a spotlight on the plight of Ukrainian children kidnapped by Russia and call for their safe return when he attends a summit on Saturday dedicated to establishing the peace between the two countries.
G7 leaders concluded their summit in Italy hours earlier on Saturday, where Canada actively participated in a U.S.-led campaign to use frozen Russian assets to offer a $50 billion loan to the Ukraine to help it fight against the Russian invader.
Canada has committed to paying 5 billion towards this loan.
Mr Trudeau has arrived in Switzerland where he will attend the Swiss Peace Summit, alongside delegations from around 90 countries, to discuss a path to ending the war with Russia.
“We will work with our partners on a plan to achieve a complete, just and lasting peace for Ukraine,” the prime minister said at a news conference in Italy at the end of the G7 Summit.
The summit on Saturday and Sunday in Lucerne, Switzerland, is widely seen as a symbolic effort by Kyiv to rally the international community to Ukraine’s cause.
Russia and its main ally China will not participate in peace talks. The government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky did not want Russia involved, but Switzerland insists Russia will be involved at some point and hopes it will one day join the process.
When asked what impact the talks would have without Russia’s participation, Trudeau said the summit was part of the peace process.
“I will focus in particular on the issue of children abducted from Ukraine by Russia who need to be returned home,” he added.
Several families told stories of their children’s captivity and their attempts to escape when they appeared before a House of Commons international human rights subcommittee last year in Ottawa, in hope that Canadian parliamentarians will help save others.
It is unclear how many children were forcibly taken to Russia or the territories it controls in Ukraine. Save the Children told the committee in November that Ukrainian and Russian estimates of the number ranged from 2,000 to 20,000.
Several teenagers told the committee how they were separated from their families and forcibly taken from Ukraine to camps in Russia or Russian-occupied territories while testifying via video conference from Ukraine.
G7 leaders paid particular attention to the situation in Ukraine at their summit in Italy, but the host country promised that the Israel-Hamas war and the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip would be an equally important topic of discussion .
The summit ended without a joint commitment to take specific steps to address the situation in the Middle East.
“G7 leaders are united in wanting the implementation of the US and UN peace plan, an immediate ceasefire, the return of all hostages,” said Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
“We have repeatedly stressed the need to continue providing humanitarian assistance, as we all do. »
India, which has avoided criticizing Russia since its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, is expected to take part in peace talks this weekend. Mr. Trudeau had a brief conversation with the country’s newly re-elected Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, on the sidelines of the G7, but would not elaborate on their discussion.
It was the first time the two leaders had met since Prime Minister Trudeau publicly accused Modi’s government of being involved in the murder of a Sikh activist, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, in British Columbia.
“There are important but sensitive issues that we need to follow up on, but this was a commitment to work together in the times ahead to address very important issues,” Justin Trudeau said.
Canada will host the next G7 Summit next year, which will be held in Kananaskis, Alberta.
Mr. Trudeau has not said whether he intends to invite Modi to these meetings.
The Canadian prime minister had a bilateral meeting with his Italian counterpart Giorgia Meloni after Saturday morning’s press conference, praising his leadership at the summit.
The tone of the meeting was much friendlier than the bilateral meeting the two leaders held at last year’s G7 Summit in Japan, where Mr. Trudeau denounced the Italian government’s stance on LGBTQ2 rights.
This week, Ms. Meloni’s right-wing government moved to erase direct references to abortion from the final declaration issued by all G7 countries at the end of the summit, sparking disagreement among nations over the wording of the final version of their common commitments.
That was confirmed by two senior U.S. officials, a senior European Union official and two other officials who spoke to The Associated Press, on condition of anonymity, about discussions on the declaration that were not made public.
The final statement, released Friday, omits the word “abortion” but refers to the need to promote “reproductive health and rights.”
When reporters asked Mr. Trudeau why he could sign the communiqué without explicitly mentioning abortion, given that his government defended the issue, the prime minister responded that there were “clear commitments in the G7 communiqué on reproductive rights and health, women’s rights and on the LGBT community”.
“We will continue as a country, as the G7, to defend the rights of everyone,” he said.