The former head of the Munich Security Conference, Wolfgang Ischinger, has spoken out in favour of preparing framework conditions for peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine.
"Apart from arms deliveries and financial support, we must offer perspectives to the growing chorus of critical questions in the US as well as here in Germany," he wrote in a guest article for Monday's edition of the Berlin-based Tagesspiegel newspaper.
He went on to say: "Of course, it is not a question of demanding a willingness to negotiate from Ukraine now and today. Ukraine alone would decide on this, and at present such a step would also be tantamount to a partial capitulation to the aggressor Russia."
"[But] it is high time that we initiate a peace process for Ukraine," he said.
"The West - the German government included - is displaying a completely superfluous nakedness vis-à-vis the Wagenknechts, Schwarzers and Prechts when, in response to the understandable question about a peace initiative, the stereotypical answer keeps coming back that the preconditions for negotiations are not in place for the time being."
Other public figures in Germany, such as leftist Sahra Wagenknecht, women's rights activist Alice Schwarzer and author Richard David Precht have found approval among parts of the German population with their call for early ceasefire talks. They have also received fierce criticism however, not least from Ukraine.
Ischinger calls for an international strategic contact group alongside the Ramstein Group, which coordinates Western arms assistance to Ukraine.
It could "form the nucleus or at least part of a mediation group in due course" if negotiations were to take place.
The closest core should be formed by the United States, Britain, France and Germany. Around this, Ischinger envisages a circle of partners, including Canada, Spain, Poland, Italy, the Baltic States, as well as the UN, EU, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and NATO.
The group "should explicitly meet again and again at the level of foreign ministers."
He advocates discussing and examining all peace options in detail. This led to success in the preparation of the peace agreement for Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1995, he pointed out.
It should be clarified, for example, how and by whom a peace process is to be monitored and in what framework military disengagements or no-fly zones are necessary.
