India’s G20 Meeting Ends in Discord, No Joint Statement

The meeting of G20 foreign ministers hosted by India on Thursday ended in disarray, with the customary joint communique scuttled by “divergences that could not be reconciled,” according to Indian Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar.

In other words, Russia and China obstructed the G20 from condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Jaishankar said that a “perfect meeting” would have produced a “collective statement,” but in Thursday’s decidedly imperfect conference, “there were issues concerning the Ukraine conflict.”

“Multilateralism is in crisis today, in terms of preventing future wars and terrorism,” he said.

Jaishankar, who met with both Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the sidelines of the G20 event, said India wanted the two dictatorships to understand that Russia’s war in Ukraine was inflicting tremendous harm on the “Global South,” the coalition of developing nations India seeks to represent.

“India has been saying very strongly since a year [ago] that for much of the Global South, this is a make-or-break issue. The costs of fuel, food, and availability of fertilizer are extremely pressing issues,” Jaishankar said.

“For them, the knock-on effects of the Russia-Ukraine crisis are doubly damaging. This matter is of deep concern. That is why we have kept the focus of these meetings on the Global South and vulnerable countries,” he said.

“PM [Narendra] Modi has said it is important to give voice to the Global South because these countries are actually regressing in terms of unsustainable debt and global warming,” warned.

Jaishankar added that the global struggle against narcotics was added to the G20 foreign ministers’ meeting for the first time this year as a crisis that demands “inclusive and strong international cooperation.”

While India laments the damage from the war, it has refused to directly condemn Russia for starting it. Russia took full advantage of New Delhi’s reluctance to jeopardize its long relationship with Moscow.

A Russian official told Reuters on Wednesday that Lavrov saw the G20 foreign ministers’ meeting as an “opportunity to engage directly with many countries who wish and choose to continue trade with Russia” – in other words, an opportunity to undermine international sanctions against Russia for its brutal invasion of Ukraine.

https://www.reuters.com/world/russias-lavrov-talks-security-trade-issues-with-indian-counterpart-2023-03-01/

When Lavrov met with Jaishankar before the conference, the two reportedly “ironed out issues on the use of local currencies for settling trade.” That would be another step toward Russia effectively neutralizing the already disappointing impact of sanctions against it.

Lavrov railed on Thursday that Western powers critical of the Russian invasion turned the G20 meeting into a circus and should be held responsible for its failure to produce a joint statement.

“A number of Western delegations has turned the work on the G20 agenda into a farce, wanting to shift the responsibility for their failures in the economy to the Russian federation,” he complained.

As for China, whose relations with longtime rival India have been particularly tense since border clashes in the Himalayas heated up in 2020, Jaishankar said his bilateral discussion with Foreign Minister Qin Gang on Thursday “focused on addressing current challenges to the bilateral relationship, especially peace and tranquility in the border areas.”

“We also spoke about the G20 agenda,” Jaishankar added, somewhat amusingly relegating the nominal purpose of Qin’s visit to an afterthought.

At a press conference after the G20 event, Jaishankar said he was candid about the “current state of our relationship” during his first meeting with China’s new foreign minister.

“We spent maybe about 45 minutes talking to each other, and the bulk of our conversation understandably was about the current state of our relationship – which many of you heard me describe me as ‘abnormal’ and I think those were among the adjectives I used in that meeting,” Jaishankar said.

Although Indian media had been skeptical that Lavrov would speak with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the G-20 sidelines in New Delhi, the two actually did have a brief conversation on Thursday.

According to the State Department, Blinken urged Lavrov to talk to Vladimir Putin to rejoin the New START agreement, which Putin withdrew from this week. Putin said he could not allow inspections of Russian nuclear sites while the U.S. and NATO were ostensibly working with Ukraine to inflict a “strategic defeat” on Russia.

Blinken reportedly told Lavrov that keeping New START alive was in the best interests of the U.S., Russia, and the international community. Blinken argued that the U.S. and Russia have a responsibility to set a high standard of cooperation on nuclear arms.

Blinken said at a press conference after talking with Lavrov that he also pushed for Moscow to release “wrongfully detained” former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, who was arrested in Russia on espionage charges in 2018. 

As for the pressing issue of the war in Ukraine, Blinken claimed he took a tough line with Lavrov, restating U.S. support for Ukraine’s independence and urging Putin to accept the “10-point plan for a just and durable peace” put forward by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Blinken gave his own sales pitch a fairly poor review, complaining that Putin “has demonstrated zero interest in engaging, saying there’s nothing to even talk about, unless and until Ukraine accepts and I quote ‘the new territorial realities’ while doubling down on his brutalization of Ukraine.”

The Russian Foreign Ministry was even more downbeat, saying Blinken’s conversation with Lavrov was held “on the go,” lasted less than ten minutes, and included no meaningful negotiations about Ukraine.

“We speak about manners. Well, our Western counterparts have gotten really bad with these. They are not thinking of diplomacy any more; they now only deal in blackmail and threatening everyone else,” Lavrov growled after the G20 meeting ended in disarray.