The head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, admitted at the Munich Security Conference that the West is applying double standards in the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine, although he only dared to point to Vladimir Putin as the main beneficiary, reports El Mundo, as quoted by Rador Radio Romania.

“Russia is taking advantage of our mistakes, double standards are to blame,” Borrell said while participating in the last day of the so-called “Davos of Security”, which was attended by numerous heads of state and government. Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Defense, as well as experts from around the world, to discuss the international situation, including Ukraine and the Middle East.

Borrell, more relaxed in his remarks as he nears the end of his term as the EU’s foreign policy chief, said that if the EU wanted to play a geopolitical role, it needed to avoid fragmented approaches that would force member states to stop “playing their own game”.

The Spaniard was particularly clear about the Middle East, convinced that peace in the region requires a clear perspective on the Palestinian people and that Israel will not be able to guarantee its security by military means alone.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Spain, Jose Manuel Albarez, believes the same. In a parallel debate with Palestinian Prime Minister Mohamed Staeh Albarez, Albarez said that when Spain calls for a permanent ceasefire, immediate humanitarian aid and the urgent release of Israeli hostages still in the hands of the armed wing of Hamas, “all this is for the good both Israelis and Palestinians.”

“Several times throughout history, both Palestinians and Israelis have agreed to the decision to create two states. So let’s seize this tragic opportunity and do it,” said the minister, who lacks “the political vision behind all this violence.”

“There is a real risk of (violence) spreading beyond Gaza. We see what is happening in the West Bank. We are very, very concerned about Lebanon, which is already very fragile,” he emphasized.

Staeh agreed with him, but reminded that the Palestinians were left without an interlocutor. “When there is no partner, there can be no process. The intervention of a third party, which could be Europe, the UN, the United States or Arab countries, is needed to find a solution,” he added.

A day earlier, Israeli President Isaac Herzog said those calling for a two-state solution should consider that Israel must prevent its neighboring state from becoming a terrorist state. Staeh did not respond to the accusations, but left open the possibility of a deal with Hamas if he adheres to the principles of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which, he said, does not want the destruction of Israel, but a bilateral solution between the states.

Former Israeli opposition leader and former foreign minister Tzipi Livni, who took part in the debate, insisted that “Hamas does not recognize Israel’s right to exist” but acknowledged that the possibility of a two-state solution “brings security” if it accompanied by a new security structure with Saudi Arabia and Jordan, and changes will also occur in Gaza.

The priority now is to suspend hostilities to facilitate the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza and the release of hostages. The president of Israel and the prime minister of Qatar, Mohamed bin Abderrahman Al Thani, spoke about this at the Munich conference.

This was not the only bilateral meeting made possible by the Security Conference. Borrell met separately with Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati; Egypt’s Foreign Minister Same Shukri and Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan.

Borrell and Mikati pledged to work “closely together” to propose a comprehensive peace process for the entire Middle East region, where war has escalated in recent months with the war in Gaza, attacks by the Shiite Houthi rebels in Yemen on commercial ships passing through the Red Sea and clashes on the Lebanese-Israeli border between the Israeli army and the Lebanese Shia group Hezbollah.

The visibility of Gaza on the last day of the Munich conference did not overshadow the relevance given to Ukraine and the Russian threat, especially when the opening of this forum coincided with the news of the death of Russian adversary Oleksiy Navalny.

Expressions of support for Ukraine, including the presence of President Zelenskyi and his Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, were unanimous, with the exception of China, which abstained. The head of Chinese diplomacy, Wang Yi, did not object to a meeting with Kuleba, however, to hear what Ukraine’s vision is for the global peace summit that will soon be held in Switzerland, to which Russia was not invited.

As long as there are no talks between Kiev and Moscow, the prospects for peace that this conference can bring are slim, and without saying so, Wang considers it a failure. “Currently, there are no conditions for the parties to the conflict to sit down at the negotiating table again,” he said. China, however, continues to try to mediate: “The sooner the peace talks take place, the more the losses of both sides will be reduced,” he said, according to El Mundo, as quoted by Rador Radio Romania.

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