DAVOS: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Tuesday that Europe should develop a joint defense policy and be willing to increase spending to guarantee its own security from emerging threats.
His comments to the World Economic Forum in Davos came a day after the inauguration of US President Donald Trump, who has demanded NATO members raise their defense spending and boasted he can end the war in Ukraine, without offering a clear roadmap.
Zelensky said Europe needed to be ready to stand on its own feet and must work to remain relevant as a “strong global” player and “indispensable” on the global stage.
“We need a united European security and defense policy, and all European countries must be willing to spend as much on security as is truly needed,” Zelensky argued in his address to the WEF.
“Europe must be able to guarantee peace and security for itself,” he added.
He evoked the Kremlin’s deployment of North Korean troops to western Russia to illustrate what he said were growing threats to European security.
“European leaders should remember this — battles involving North Korean soldiers are now happening in places geographically closer to Davos than to Pyongyang,” he said.
And he pointed to a recent pact between Russia and Iran boosting their economic and military cooperation, saying the accord was an example of a changing landscape that was a threat to Europe.
“Whom do they make such deals against? Against you, against all of us,” he said. “Such threats can only be countered together,” he added.
Zelensky also questioned whether Trump was committed to NATO and European security, claiming that Washington has openly indicated their security priorities lie in the Middle East and in the Asia-Pacific region.
“Will President Trump even notice Europe? Does he see NATO as necessary? And will he respect EU institutions?” Zelensky asked.
Zelensky urges ‘united’ European defense policy at Davos
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Zelensky urges ‘united’ European defense policy at Davos
- Zelensky said Europe needed to be ready to stand on its own feet and must work to remain relevant as a “strong global” player
- “Europe must be able to guarantee peace and security for itself“
UN chief calls on Israel to reverse NGOs ban in Gaza
- In November, authorities in Gaza said more than 70,000 people had been killed there since the war broke out
- Israel on Thursday suspended 37 foreign humanitarian organizations from accessing the Gaza Strip after they had refused to share lists of their Palestinian employees with government officials
UNITED NATIONS, United States: UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called on Friday for Israel to end a ban on humanitarian agencies that provided aid in Gaza, saying he was “deeply concerned” at the development.
Guterres “calls for this measure to be reversed, stressing that international non-governmental organizations are indispensable to life-saving humanitarian work and that the suspension risks undermining the fragile progress made during the ceasefire,” his spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.
“This recent action will further exacerbate the humanitarian crisis facing Palestinians,” he added.
Israel on Thursday suspended 37 foreign humanitarian organizations from accessing the Gaza Strip after they had refused to share lists of their Palestinian employees with government officials.
The ban includes Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which has 1,200 staff members in the Palestinian territories — the majority of whom are in Gaza.
NGOs included in the ban have been ordered to cease their operations by March 1.
Several NGOS have said the requirements contravene international humanitarian law or endanger their independence.
Israel says the new regulation aims to prevent bodies it accuses of supporting terrorism from operating in the Palestinian territories.
On Thursday, 18 Israel-based left-wing NGOs denounced the decision to ban their international peers, saying “the new registration framework violates core humanitarian principles of independence and neutrality.”
A fragile ceasefire has been in place since October, following a deadly war waged by Israel in response to Hamas’s unprecedented October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
In November, authorities in Gaza said more than 70,000 people had been killed there since the war broke out.
Nearly 80 percent of buildings in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged by the war, according to UN data, leaving infrastructure decimated.
About 1.5 million of Gaza’s more than two million residents have lost their homes, said Amjad Al-Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGO Network in Gaza.
