Diplomacy
‘Mourning is not enough’
Hans von Sponeck, former UN Assistant-Secretary-General and Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq
War: war was part of the first years of my life. I have felt war. My father was executed in 1944, my grandfather died as a prisoner of war, my half-brother lost his life on the eastern front, my mother escaped from an internment camp, and my grandmother and I saw the end of the war in a hide-out at what became the border between two Germanies.
As I grew older, I was eager, very eager, to understand what could prevent war. Young as I was, it was not yet clear to me what this entailed. In 1957, I was seventeen at the time, I was offered a travel scholarship by the French Zelidja Foundation and my German boarding school, Salem, to support the plan I had to go to Israel to meet German Jews who had escaped from the area where my school was located and found refuge in Israel.
I wanted to understand how they had started their new life as survivors from my country. I wanted to join them, and this was for more than one reason: to be there and to share their effort to settle. A German cargo ship brought me from Hamburg to Haifa – what freight it carried, I do not remember, maybe some goods that symbolized that there was a future between Germany and Israel.
The innocence of my age protected me during this visit against the burden of guilt. Tel Adashim, a moshav or farming community, gave me the opportunity to meet with people who had at one time been fellow Germans. They were kind to me and allowed me to get a glimpse of their new life. In two Kibbutzim, Ein Gedi, and Ein Gev, both in the Dead Sea area, I encountered a more difficult reality. It was not the toughness of the work in the fields that was a challenge, it was the horrors of the experience of the older kibbutzniks that were written on their faces and the reservation of the younger, the sabers, the locally-born Israelis towards me, a young German who had come to try to understand. What remains very clearly in my memory is the immense optimism the Israelis I met all had in building a life based on peace and tranquility. I knew nothing of the plight of the Palestinians.
This is not the place to review decades of opportunities various Israeli governments have missed to build upon these initial years of the young country and accept the UN General Assembly’s decision of 1947 to have a Jewish and an Arab state in the former British Protectorate of Palestine. I want to recall what Albert Einstein wrote to Chaim Weizman in 1929, who later became Israel’s first president: “Should the Jews not learn to live in peace with the Arabs, then we have learnt nothing during the 2000 years of suffering and deserve all that will come to us.” How dare I, as a non-Jew, include such a quote? To do so is not an antisemitic outburst on my part. I am ardently pro-semitic partially because Palestinians and Israelis are both of Semitic origin unless Shem, the son of Noah, is no longer considered an ancestor of Jews and Arabs. My heart aches and my mind is determined to speak out.
The condemnation by the UN Secretary-General Guterres of the horrific acts by Hamas and at the same time, his reminding the world that the Palestinian people have had to endure 56 years of suffocating occupation while their land was devoured by illegal settlements took courage but was the right thing to do. The brutality of the IDF response to the brutality of the Hamas attack both constitute severe violations of international humanitarian law for which they must be held accountable. While law has no feelings, innocent citizens of Palestine and Israel have feelings, yet no choice but to suffer.
The UN Security Council was created after the Second World War to function as a team able to find compromises and negotiate solutions and not act as national adversaries that add fuel to the fire. Yet, the US and the Russian draft resolutions currently before the Security Council demonstrate that geopolitical interests are more important than ending the carnage and fulfilling their mandate to prevent war and find solutions for peace.
As a former UN civil servant who has seen at close range how the world of power handled Iraq in the previous century, I am outraged by the hypocrisy of heads of state and foreign ministers flocking to Tel Aviv with one-sided messages and adding the fig leaf not to forget humanitarian aid. Completely ignored is the context, the ‘why’ it all happened. Are pictures of the Supernova Sukkot Gathering, Gaza City, and Khan Younis not enough to instill a sense of urgency, of compassion, and an imperative to replace hollow rhetoric with concrete measures that will make a difference whether Palestinians and Israelis alike survive or die?
Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Vahan Kostanyan announced that Yerevan might decide to withdraw entirely from the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) if member states fail to “demonstrate a clear political stance” regarding Azerbaijan’s actions. Kostanyan emphasized that Armenia is no longer making insinuations but is speaking very openly.
According to the Novosti-Armenia news agency, Kostanyan stated, “Ultimately, if our partners in the CSTO, including the Russian Federation, do not make the political statements that were mentioned several years ago after the aggression against the sovereign territory of the Republic of Armenia, then Armenia will make a final decision.”
The Deputy Minister also underscored that Armenia, as a sovereign state, will determine the right time for its next steps.
Membership was frozen
Relations between Armenia, Russia, and the CSTO deteriorated following the conflicts in Nagorno-Karabakh, after which Yerevan formally requested support from its allies.
Following this process, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan repeatedly criticized the CSTO for not assisting Yerevan.
Pashinyan described the organization as a “bubble alliance,” claiming it was “planning a war” against Armenia alongside Baku.
Last February, Prime Minister Pashinyan announced that Armenia had frozen its participation in the CSTO. By May, the Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that the country would refuse to finance the organization’s activities.
Intelligence report points in the same direction
In January of this year, a public report released by the Armenian Foreign Intelligence Service stated that the country has no intention of returning to full participation in the CSTO in the near future.
The report noted, “We find it highly unlikely that the reasons that led to Armenia suspending its membership will change in 2025. Based on this situation, the organization’s prestige continues to be seriously questioned and has become a ’cause for reflection’ for other member countries.”
Kirill Dmitriev, Special Representative of the President of the Russian Federation and CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), announced that the internal trade volume among BRICS countries has reached $1 trillion.
In a statement on his Telegram channel, Dmitriev noted that surpassing this significant milestone confirms the strengthening of economic ties between member states and the bloc’s growing role in shaping the new global economic architecture.
He also emphasized that Russia continues to strengthen trade relations, particularly through the BRICS Business Council, in line with the directives of President Vladimir Putin.
BRICS’ share will continue to grow, Putin says
During a plenary session at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on June 20, Russian President Vladimir Putin recalled that at the beginning of the 21st century, BRICS countries accounted for only one-fifth of the global economy, whereas today this figure has reached 40%.
The Russian leader stated that this share will continue to grow, describing it as a “medical fact.” According to Putin, this growth will primarily be driven by the countries of the Global South.
In April, Maxim Oreshkin, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Administration of Russia, also said that the BRICS countries, operating on principles of consensus, have become a key force in the world economy.
BRICS expansion agenda
Initially composed of five countries—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—BRICS expanded in 2024 with the inclusion of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Iran, Ethiopia, and Egypt.
In January of this year, Indonesia became the bloc’s tenth full member.
Chinese President Xi Jinping will not attend the upcoming BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro next week.
According to multiple sources cited by the South China Morning Post on Tuesday, this marks the first time Xi will miss the gathering of leaders from major emerging economies.
Officials familiar with the matter stated that Beijing informed the Brazilian government of a scheduling conflict. Premier Li Qiang is expected to lead the Chinese delegation in Xi’s place, a similar arrangement to the 2023 G20 summit in India.
Chinese officials involved in the preparations suggested Xi’s absence is due to his two meetings with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva within the past year. The first occurred during the G20 summit and a state visit to Brasília last November, while the second took place at the China-CELAC forum in Beijing this May.
Xi has never before missed a BRICS summit. In 2023, he was scheduled to deliver a speech at the meeting in South Africa but, at the last minute, sent Commerce Minister Wang Wentao instead. Beijing provided no official explanation for the change.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Xi participated in BRICS meetings virtually, with Russia hosting in 2020 and China in 2021.
On Tuesday, the Brazilian Foreign Ministry told the Post it “would not comment on the internal deliberations of foreign delegations.” The Chinese embassy in Brazil did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
However, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun told the Brazilian newspaper Folha de S.Paulo, “information regarding participation in the summit will be shared at the appropriate time.” Guo added that China supports Brazil’s BRICS presidency and aims to “promote deeper cooperation” among member nations. “In a volatile and turbulent world, the BRICS countries are maintaining their strategic resolve and working together for global peace, stability, and development,” he said.
In Brasília, officials have not concealed their disappointment regarding Xi’s absence. A source informed the Post that Lula had traveled to Beijing in May as a “show of goodwill” and had hoped “the Chinese president would reciprocate the gesture by attending the Rio summit.”
There was also speculation that Lula’s invitation to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a state dinner after the BRICS summit may have influenced Beijing’s decision, as Xi might have been “perceived as a supporting actor” at the event.
Lula’s special adviser for international relations, Celso Amorim, met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing, where he clearly expressed Brazil’s desire to host Xi. “I told them, ‘BRICS without China is not BRICS,'” Amorim stated, recalling that then-President Hu Jintao attended the first BRICS summit in Brazil despite a major earthquake in China at the time. “He only stayed for one day, but he came.”
Amorim emphasized the particular importance of Xi’s attendance in the current global context, citing the “US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and the World Health Organization” as a “violation of international rules.”
Premier Li is expected to arrive in Brazil next weekend for the summit, which is scheduled for July 6 and 7 in Rio.
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