Dialogue without confusing aggressor and aggressed - Zuppi

"There can be no doubt that there is an aggressor and an aggressed, we cannot play down this fact," said Zuppi at an event organised by left-wing party Rifondazione Comunista in Bologna.

"The Pope is right to ask for peace, but without confusing the aggressor and aggressed. If you do this, the aggressed feels delegitimised, misunderstood, abandoned," he continued.

In June Zuppi was tasked by the pope with leading a peace mission on Ukraine that has taken him to Kyiv, Moscow, Washington DC and most recently Beijing to try to identify initiatives that might help open up paths to peace.

"We must have the ambition that the injustice created by a country that occupies another piece of a sovereign country can be redressed not only using weapons, and that law, guarantees, justice and security can be guaranteed through commitment to dialogue," said Zuppi.

"(We need to) Have the ambition that justice can be achieved with the weapon of law," he concluded.