Brundtland to meet with Putin in Moscow

Amid rising tensions between Russian and the West, a group of global political and public figures who held top jobs in their countries and international organizations, travel to Russia to meet President Vladimir Putin, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Former President Mikhail Gorbachev, Norwegian paper VG writes.

The Elders is an international non-governmental organization of twelve public figures noted as elder statesmen, peace activists, and human rights advocates, who were brought together by Nelson Mandela in 2007.

They describe themselves as “independent global leaders working together for peace and human rights”. The goal Mandela set for the Elders was to use their “almost 1,000 years of collective experience” to work on solutions for seemingly insurmountable problems such as climate change, HIV/AIDS, and poverty, as well as to “use their political independence to help resolve some of the world’s most intractable conflicts”.

Six members of the organization on Monday traveled to Moscow, among them former Prime Minister of Norway and former Director-General of the World Health Organization Gro Harlem Brundtland, former President of the United States Jimmy Carter, former Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan, and former President of Finland Martti Ahtisaari, the organization’s web site reads.

Both Carter, Annan and Ahtisaari are Nobel Peace Laureates.

The purpose of the three-day visit to Russia is to engage in discussion of some of the key foreign policy issues of the day, including the Middle East, how to combat terrorism and United Nations reform. Ukraine will probably also be discussed, VG says.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Monday confirmed that Putin is going to meet the group.

“Yes, there is such a meeting in the president’s schedule,” Peskov said, providing no details on the date of the meeting, Russia and India Report writes.