The President of the Assembly of the Republic assured this Wednesday in Kiev that Portugal will continue its efforts to expand the coalition supporting Ukraine to include African and Latin American countries that believe the war is far away.
In a speech in the Kyiv parliament addressed to the Lusa bureau, Augusto Santos Silva stated that this effort by Portugal is intended to “make it clear that the borders of Ukraine today are the borders of freedom, security and peace of the whole”. world”. .
Despite the fact that the coalition of countries that politically and diplomatically support Ukraine “without sophistry condemning Russian aggression” is “very broad”, Santos Silva felt it necessary to go further and take advantage of what Portuguese diplomacy called “real added value” to the struggle of the Ukrainian people.
“We still need to broaden it. Talk constantly with the countries of the South, with the countries of Africa and Latin America, who are victims of the economic consequences of the war, but who sometimes see it as a distant, only European issue what Portugal has done and will continue to do,” he assured, in the speech opening the parliamentary session of the Ukrainian parliament, according to his press service.
Santos Silva, right at the beginning of his speech, articulated the “central purpose” of his visit to Kiev, accompanied by representatives from four parties and meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky and with the Ukrainian Prime Minister before the visit to parliament .
“To express the deep solidarity of the Portuguese people with the Ukrainian people, affirming all the support of Portugal for Ukraine in its struggle for the inalienable right to its independence and territorial integrity,” he said, recalling the position that “with one voice” was pronounced by the President of the Portuguese Republic, the Parliament and the Government on the day of the outbreak of war, February 24, 2022.
The President of the Portuguese Parliament stressed that “war is horror” to reiterate that “when one of the parties provokes war and attacks the other side militarily, the latter has not only the right but also the duty to defend itself with arms” .
“It is therefore time to support the defense of Ukraine and provide Ukraine with the weapons and equipment indispensable for its defense,” he said, pointing to Russian aggression against civilians and other war crimes to defend that “the international community must performance”. that those responsible be brought to justice’, which requires ‘European and Atlantic unity’.
After rejecting the various false arguments put forward by the Kremlin to justify the aggression, such as “historic law” or the threat to Moscow represented by NATO enlargement, Augusto Santos Silva reiterated Portugal’s support for the accession process of Ukraine to the European Union.
“Portugal and Ukraine are two close-knit countries. Both European and Western. With growing ties between peoples, mainly based on the size and excellent integration of the Ukrainian community living in Portugal and speaking both Ukrainian and Portuguese,” he stated.
For Santos Silva, these ties “will become even stronger now, through Ukraine’s accession process to the European Union”.
“Portugal supports this process and defends that the European Union must implement the reforms necessary for this new enlargement dynamic. The ties between our two countries are also growing stronger as cooperation between Ukraine and NATO, an alliance of which Portugal is a founding member “, said the President of the Assembly of the Republic.
Source: DN
