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NEW DELHI: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrapped up Sunday a G20 summit that performed down deep divisions over the warfare in Ukraine and local weather change, however gave him a second within the diplomatic highlight. G20 nations have been riven over the Ukraine warfare since Moscow’s invasion final 12 months, with Russian President Vladimir Putin skipping the summit completely to dodge political opprobrium.
Leaders of the Group of 20, which brings collectively Russia and China in addition to a few of Ukraine’s most ardent backers, have just lately struggled to agree on a lot, specifically in regards to the 18-month-old invasion. Going through a serious diplomatic embarrassment, host India pressed members to agree a typical assertion on Saturday that denounced using power for territorial acquire, however shied away from direct criticism of Russia. Kyiv mentioned the G20 had “nothing to be happy with” however Russian International Minister Sergei Lavrov, who stood in for Putin on the assembly, on Sunday claimed a diplomatic win.
“We had been in a position to forestall the West’s makes an attempt to ‘Ukrainize’ the summit agenda,” the veteran diplomat mentioned, dubbing the two-day gathering a “success”. “The textual content doesn’t point out Russia in any respect.” On Sunday, Modi formally closed the summit by passing on a ceremonial gavel to Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whose nation will take the bloc’s presidency in December. “We can not let geopolitical points sequester the G20 agenda of discussions,” Lula mentioned, an implicit reference to wrangling over the Ukraine warfare. “Now we have little interest in a divided G20.
We want peace and cooperation as a substitute of battle.” Indian civil servant Amitabh Kant wrote on X, previously often called Twitter, that the compromise textual content on Ukraine had concerned “over 200 hours of continuous negotiations, 300 bilateral conferences (and) 15 drafts”. However regardless of assembly in what the EU’s local weather monitor says is more likely to be the most popular 12 months in human historical past, the leaders did not comply with a phase-out of fossil fuels, regardless of a UN report a day earlier deeming the drawdown “indispensable” to attaining net-zero emissions.
As an alternative, they backed a goal of tripling international renewable power capability by 2030, whereas committing solely to a “phasedown” of coal “consistent with nationwide circumstances”. G20 members Russia and Saudi Arabia are main oil exporters, whereas coal consumption is rising in China and India, already the world’s largest customers of the soiled gas. The local weather outcomes had been “inadequate”, French President Emmanuel Macron mentioned Sunday, saying the world should “part out coal very quickly and rather more shortly than in the present day”.
Modi, who painted the summit as India’s diplomatic coming of age and is pushing for a everlasting seat on the UN Safety Council, celebrated the accession of the 55-member African Union to the G20. Because the G20, the grouping included 19 nations and the European Union, representing 85 p.c of the world GDP, with South Africa its solely member state from the continent. Modi has sought to place New Delhi as a voice for the World South and the transfer turned the grouping right into a “individuals’s G20”.
He additionally proposed one other G20 leaders’ assembly in November by video-link, opening up the potential of Putin becoming a member of — together with China’s Xi Jinping, who skipped the summit with the Asian giants at loggerheads over territorial and different points. Lula mentioned Putin could be free to attend subsequent 12 months’s occasion in Rio de Janeiro, regardless of Brazil being a signatory to the Worldwide Prison Court docket (ICC), which has issued a warrant for the Russian chief’s arrest for warfare crimes. “If I’m the president of Brazil and if he involves Brazil, there’s no manner that he will likely be arrested,” he instructed Indian information community Firstpost on Saturday.
Others got here collectively on the summit sidelines, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan holding face-to-face talks together with his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi on Sunday following a decade-long rift between the 2 nations. World leaders had earlier joined Modi to pay their respects to revered Indian independence hero Mahatma Gandhi, taking off their sneakers on the web site of his cremation, the place regular footwear is forbidden as a mark of respect.
Like Modi, many walked barefoot on the rain-dampened web site — together with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Macron — whereas others together with US President Joe Biden opted for slippers. After a rendition of a Hindu devotional hymn, they stood for a second’s silence earlier than leaving wreaths on the marble plinth the place an everlasting flame commemorates Gandhi’s reminiscence. – AFP
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