President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. meets Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky during a courtesy call at the Malacañan Palace on Monday, June 3, 2024. The two leaders attended the IISS Shangri-la Dialogue Defense Summit in Singapore, but their schedules did not align with a meeting on the sidelines of the forum held over the weekend. (KJ ROSALES/PPAPOOL)
MANILA, Philippines—After meeting with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that the Philippines will participate in the Swiss-organized global peace summit on the war in Ukraine later this month.
Zelensky said in a post on X (formerly Twitter) that after a bilateral meeting with Marcos at Malacañang, part of the discussions was the Global Peace Summit and the importance of Southeast Asian countries’ participation there.
“I arrived in the Philippines and met with President @BongbongMarcos for the first time in the history of our bilateral relations,” Zelensky tweeted.
“We discussed the inaugural Global Peace Summit and the importance of Southeast Asian countries being represented there. I am pleased that the Philippines will participate in the Summit,” he added.
However, neither Malacañang nor the Presidential Communications Office (PCO) have confirmed this as of this posting.
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The Philippines, though, has been supportive of Ukraine’s plight, having voted in favor of a 2022 United Nations resolution expressing “explicit condemnation” of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Zelensky thanked Marcos for the Philippines’ support of Ukraine’s “sovereignty and territorial integrity.” Earlier, too, the Ukrainian president said they will open an embassy in the Philippines within 2024.
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“I am grateful to the Philippines for supporting Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, for its clear position on Russia’s aggression against our country, and for supporting important UN resolutions,” he said.
“We also talked about bilateral cooperation, particularly Ukrainian agricultural exports to the Philippines,” he added.
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Zelensky went to Manila for a short bilateral meeting with Marcos after failing to meet in Singapore over the weekend.
Marcos and Zelensky came from Singapore, where the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s premier defense summit, was held.
Marcos was the keynote speaker there; Zelensky, on the other hand, was urging countries in the Asean region to support the Swiss-organized summit on the war in Ukraine.