No G20 Consensus Yet Again, India Issues Chair's Summary As Foreign Ministers Divided Over Ukraine
The G20 finance ministers’ meeting last week also had failed to come out with a joint communique due to sharp differences over the Ukraine conflict.
New Delhi: Just as the G20 finance ministers’ track last week, the Foreign Ministers’ Meeting Thursday failed to reach at a consensus, and a joint communique was not issued due to differences between the West and Russia and China. Similar to the finance ministers’ meeting, the foreign ministers’ round also issued a ‘Chair’s Summary and Outcome Document’, with a footnote mentioning that Russia and China did not agree to Paragraphs 3 & 4 of the G20 Bali Declaration that was arrived at in November 2022.
“There were issues and the issues were concerning the Ukraine conflict on which there were divergences,” Jaishankar said at a media conference summarising the two-day G20 Foreign Ministers’ meeting that concluded Thursday.
He added: “There were differences on the Ukraine issue which we couldn’t reconcile between parties who held different positions …. Some countries feel (the Bali Declaration) cannot be extrapolated.”
Jaishankar said the Ukraine conflict is impacting the Global South. He said the issues concerning costs of fuel, fertilisers and oil are “pressing and make or break issues”.
The chair’s document noted: “We recall the Bali Leaders’ Declaration where Leaders had reaffirmed that the rules-based, non-discriminatory, free, fair, open, inclusive, equitable, sustainable and transparent multilateral trading system, with the WTO at its core, is indispensable to advancing our shared objectives of inclusive growth.”
UK, US Sabotaged Peace Talks Between Russia And Ukraine: Lavrov
Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a press conference the “western democracy is filled with blackmail”.
"They've engaged in unlawful behavior in Syria, Libya, Iraq, Yugoslavia among others, raised the threat of terrorism and encroached on those nations’ sovereignty. West was never threatened by the situations there,” Lavrov said on the margins of the G20 meet.
Lavrov also said that “peace talks between Russia and Ukraine were sabotaged by the UK and the US, who seek to drag out the conflict to inflict a strategic defeat of Russia”.
He added: “Russian isolation concept is wrong. We talk to our partners around the world. It is the West which is isolating itself.”
Meanwhile, Lavrov and Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang also held a bilateral on the sidelines where Beijing presented its “peace plan”.
On March 3, India will chair the Quad Foreign Ministers' meeting. The Quad Summit will be held in Australia later this year.
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