G-20 diplomats struggle for unity on Ukraine
Deeply divided top diplomats from the world’s richest and largest developing nations struggled to find common ground on Friday over Russia’s war in Ukraine and how to deal with its global impacts. At talks that were knocked off balance by two unrelated and unexpected political developments far from the Indonesian resort of Bali where they were meeting, Group of 20 foreign ministers heard an emotional plea for unity and an end to the war from their Indonesian host. Yet, consensus appeared to remain elusive amid deepening East-West splits. All the main players were there, marking the first time since Russia's attack on Ukraine that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and many others have been in the same room. The meeting opened only hours after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced his resignation on Thursday, prompting his Foreign Secretary Liz Truss to depart, and was just underway when former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was shot. Both Johnson and Abe are well known to the G-20 family, having participated in numerous similar conferences and leaders' summits in the past. One goal of Friday's meeting was to lay the groundwork for the upcoming G-20 summit that Indonesia will host in November. Many, if not all, of the participants expressed their shock at Abe's shooting that occurred as they were holding the first of two plenary sessions on the importance of restoring confidence in multilateralism and upholding the global rules-based order. Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi urged the group – which included Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Lavrov, Blinken and several European counterparts – to overcome mistrust for the sake of a planet confronting multiple challenges from coronavirus to climate change as well as Ukraine. “The world has yet to recover from the pandemic but we are already confronted with another crisis: the war in Ukraine,” Marsudi said. “The ripple effects are being felt globally on food, on energy and physical space.” She noted that poor and developing countries now face the brunt of fuel and grain shortages resulting from the war in Ukraine and said that the G-20 has a responsibility to step up to deal with the matter to ensure the rules-based global order remains relevant. (AP)______________________________
Last updated: 2022-07-8 HKT 16:12 