The 62nd Munich Security Conference is taking place at the Bayerischer Hof hotel in Munich, Germany, from Friday to Sunday, convening more than 60 heads of state and government, 50 leaders of international organisations and participants from at least 115 countries.

    The first day of the gathering on Friday saw French President Emmanuel Macron call for “a strong Europe” while German Chancellor Friedrich Merz acknowledged a “rift” between Europe and the US.

    The second day’s participants include US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Syria’s top diplomat Asaad Hasan al-Shaibani, among others.

Former NATO chief says ‘Putin does not want peace’

    Former NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen has told Al Jazeera on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference that he has little hope that Russian President Vladimir Putin would negotiate an end to the Ukraine war under present circumstances.

    “As long as he believes that he can win on the battlefield, he has no incentive to engage in constructive peace negotiations,” he said. “That’s why we have to put more pressure on Putin to force him into the negotiating room.”

    Rasmussen, who served as Secretary General of the trans-Atlantic alliance between 2009 and 2014, said more pressure should come both on the military front, by delivering more weapons to Ukraine, and on the economic front, by strengthening sanctions against Russia.

Zelenskyy says Iran government ‘must be stopped immediately’

    The Ukrainian leader has weighed in on the protests against Iran’s government taking place in Munich, where the security conference is taking place.

    “Regimes like the one in Iran must not be given time. When they have time, they only kill more. They must be stopped immediately,” Zelenskyy said.

    “The Iranian regime has already done – and can still do – more harm than many other regimes could do in a century.”

    He added that “the Iranian Shahed drones they sold to Russia are killing our people and destroying our infrastructure.”

Reality on the ground defies attacks from Israeli politicians, UNRWA chief says

    Philippe Lazzarini tells Al Jazeera that doing away with his agency would deprive thousands of Palestinians of critical, basic services.

    “UNRWA is under a lot of pressure. We have been under a lot of political attacks; there are a number of politicians in Israel who want to get rid of the agency,” he told Al Jazeera’s James Bays on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.

    Israel has repeatedly accused the agency of being lenient or complicit with Palestinian armed groups, without providing verifiable evidence. These are allegations UNRWA has vehemently denied, stressing it takes disciplinary action against any employee proven to be involved in wrongdoing.

    In 2025, the Israeli Knesset passed legislation banning the agency’s operations in areas it considers part of “Israeli sovereignty”, including occupied East Jerusalem, claiming UNRWA poses a security threat.

    But, as Lazzarini continues repeating, there is no agency, other than UNRWA, equipped to handle the huge needs of Palestinians who have endured two years of Israel’s genocidal war.

    “The reality is completely different. We have 12,000 staff, we have the workforce, the expertise, the community trust to provide daily critical services,” he said.

We need the return of Syrians to the country to be ‘sustainable’: Syria’s FM

    “Removing the sanctions is just opening the door; it’s not the reconstruction, and it’s not the end of the process,” Syria’s Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani has said on the sidelines of the Munich Conference.

    “We in Syria still have IDP camps, we still have Syrian refugees outside Syria, and we have a large number of cities and villages that are destroyed,” he said.

    “We tried to reintroduce Syria to the world, that this Syria wants to cooperate and work with everyone.”

    Al-Shaibani said the number of Syrians who have returned to the country since the ouster of the country’s longtime ruler, Bashar al-Assad, is 1.2 million, according to UN statistics, adding that Damascus’s estimate is slightly higher.

    “But we don’t want chaotic or emotional returns as a Syrian government. We cannot say to anyone: ‘Don’t come back now’; any Syrian citizens should have the right to come back to their country any time. But we need the return to be sustainable, useful for Syria and to make sure that those returnees contribute to the reconstruction of Syria,” he added.

Amnesty chief slams US’s ‘mediocre statements’ at MSC as world falls into ‘abyss’

    Secretary-General of Amnesty International Agnes Callamard has criticised European leaders and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio for delivering “mediocre statements” at the Munich Security Conference.

    “This would be sad at any point in time. This is unconscionable at a time when the world is falling into an abyss,” she said. “Focusing on European defence, sovereignty and independence is not the concern. What is eminently problematic is the complete absence of a political project vision, a positive vision for our global society.”

    Callamard also condemned the “incredibly racist project and vision” put forward by Rubio, which focused on renewing an alliance between “white people”.