(Bloomberg) — Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said Ukraine joining NATO could be an “appropriate outcome” of Russia’s invasion, while reiterating his call for a negotiated solution to the conflict.
(Bloomberg) — Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said Ukraine joining NATO could be an “appropriate outcome” of Russia’s invasion, while reiterating his call for a negotiated solution to the conflict.
“The idea of a neutral Ukraine under these conditions is no longer meaningful,” Kissinger, 99, told the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland on Tuesday. Kissinger, long an opponent of Ukraine’s membership of the organization, has softened his stance on the issue in recent months.
Kissinger, a former secretary of state and national security adviser, said he believes in maintaining dialog with Russia while the war continues, with a view toward ending fighting if Ukraine is able to recapture territory that President Vladimir Putin’s forces seized after the Feb. 24 invasion. He warned against direct conflict between the west and Russia and stressed the importance of allowing Russia to rejoin the international system.
Kissinger said that limited and concrete steps from both the US and China are necessary to improve ties between the world’s two largest economies. Longer term, he said Washington and Beijing should weigh the risks of conflict between two nuclear-armed states that are also developing artificial-intelligence capabilities.
“Each side needs to consider for itself how the threat to human survival of the destructiveness of weapons, coupled with making them almost conscious in their application, can be dealt with,” Kissinger said.
The US and China have taken tentative steps to improve relations after years of deteriorating ties. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will hold her first face-to-face meeting with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He on Jan. 18 in Zurich, and plans are underway for Secretary of State Antony Blinken to visit China in early 2023.
On Taiwan, Kissinger said that both sides should avoid actions that suggest an “imminent showdown” and cool threatening language to create conditions for dialog.
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