- The platform would be used by Delhi to discuss issues concerning emerging countries.
- Splits within the group over the Ukraine conflict will put India’s diplomacy to the test.
- Experts predict that tensions over Ukraine will overshadow negotiations.
Foreign ministers from the world’s most powerful economies have gathered in Delhi for the second high-level ministerial meeting of India’s G20 chairmanship.
On Thursday, India’s S. Jaishankar will meet with his colleagues from the United States, China, and Russia, among others.
The platform would be used by Delhi to discuss issues concerning emerging countries known as the Global South.
Experts argue that splits within the group over the Ukraine conflict will put India’s diplomacy to the test.
India has resisted the pressure and maintained its policy of not directly criticizing Russia. The country has consistently abstained from voting on UN resolutions denouncing the Ukrainian war, including a vote last week at the UN General Assembly.
Indirect criticism of Russia
Although India has not directly criticized Russia, it has emphasized the importance of “the UN Charter, international law, and respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states” in previous pronouncements on Ukraine.
Last autumn, Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a speech on the margins of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit that was interpreted as an indirect criticism of Russia. “Today’s moment is not one of conflict,” Mr. Modi said at a meeting with President Putin in Uzbekistan.
Also last week, G20 finance ministers failed to reach a consensus on a closing statement at their meeting in Bangalore (Bengaluru) city, in the first ministerial meeting in the run-up to the summit later this year.
Both Moscow and Beijing declined to accept parts of a closing statement that deplored Russia’s aggression “in the strongest terms”. In the end, India had to release a chair’s summary which noted “different assessments of the situation” in Ukraine within the group.
“This war has to be condemned,” Josep Borrell, the European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, told reporters after the meeting.
“I hope, I am sure that India’s diplomatic capacity will be used in order to make Russia understand that this war has to finish,” he said.
Experts predict that tensions over Ukraine will overshadow negotiations on Thursday as well.
A total of 40 delegations are attending the summit, including those led by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang.
On Wednesday, India’s top diplomat Vinay Kwatra said that while the war in Ukraine would be an important point of discussion, “questions relating to food, energy and fertilizer security, the impact that the conflict has on these economic challenges that we face” would also receive “due focus”.
India has been establishing itself as a major voice of developing countries – known as the Global South – in recent years, and experts say it wants to use its G20 chair to focus on issues it regards as more vital for the developing world.
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