Riyadh: Saudi Arabia is preparing to host a summit to discuss Ukrainian Presi-dent Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s plan for peace in his country amid the ongoing Russian invasion, according to a sen-ior official in Kyiv. Andriy Yermak, Zelen-skyy’s chief of staff, said on Sunday that officials from several countries would take part in the Saudi Ara-bian summit but did not say when or in which city the meeting will be held.The Wall Street Journal, which first reported on the summit citing “diplomats involved in the discussion”, said the talks would take place on August 5 and 6, in the city of Jeddah, with some 30 countries attending. The Journal said Ukrain-ian and Western officials hope the efforts could culmi-nate in a peace summit later this year where global lead-ers would sign up to shared principles for resolving the war. Yermak, writing on Tel-egram, said discussions will take place on the Ukrain-ian Peace Formula, which “contains 10 fundamental points, the implementation of which will not only en-sure peace for Ukraine, but also create mechanisms to counter future conflicts in the world”. Previously, Ukraine has described the 10-point peace formula as including the restoration of Ukraine’s ter-ritorial integrity, the with-drawal of Russian troops, the release of all prisoners, a tribunal for those respon-sible for the aggression and security guarantees for Ukraine. “We are deeply convinced that the Ukrainian peace plan should be taken as a basis, because the war is taking place on our land,” Yermak said. His statement described the 10 points as being “dis-cussed individually and in groups with representatives of more than 50 countries on an almost weekly basis”.He added that the meet-ing in Saudi Arabia follows on from a gathering of sen-ior officials in the Danish capital, Copenhagen, in late June. Countries that attend-ed the initial meeting in-cluded Brazil, India, Turkey and South Africa.For the Jeddah summit, the 30 invitees include Chile, Egypt, the European Union, Indonesia, Mexico, Poland, the United Kingdom, the United States and Zambia, according to the Journal. Russia has not been in-vited, according to the As-sociated Press news agency. Citing an unnamed official, the AP said a high-level of-ficial from US President Joe Biden’s administration is also expected to attend the event. There was no imme-diate comment from Saudi Arabia. —Agencies

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