2023-09-10 05:48:01
NEW DELHI (AP) — G20 leaders paid their respects Sunday at a monument to Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi, a day after the forum added a new member and reached agreements on several issues, although it softened the terms in the which describes Russia’s war in Ukraine.
India, which this year hosts the summit of the Group of 20 rich and developing countries, ended the first day of the summit with diplomatic victories. At the beginning of the first session, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that the group would add the African Union as a member as part of the Indian president’s efforts to give more relevance to the Global South.
A few hours later, India announced that it had gotten the disparate group of attendees to sign a final communiqué, but only after softening the wording on the controversial issue of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
He also unveiled an ambitious plan with the United States, the European Union and others to build a rail and shipping corridor connecting India with the Middle East and Europe, to bolster economic growth and political cooperation.
After resolving those important agenda items, Canadian Justin Trudeau, Australian Anthony Albanese and Japanese Fumio Kishida, among others, shook hands on Sunday and posed for photos with Modi at the Raj Ghat monument in New Delhi. Modi gifted the leaders with shawls made from khadi, a hand-woven fabric pioneered by Gandhi during the Indian independence movement against British control.
Some leaders, such as British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak; German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Indonesian President Joko Widodo, who hosted last year’s summit, walked barefoot to the monument in a traditional show of respect. Many others, such as the president of the United States, Joe Biden, used sneakers that are usually offered to visitors to walk on wet ground dotted with puddles caused by heavy rain.
The leaders stood before wreaths placed on the monument, which includes an eternal flame and was adorned with garlands of yellow and orange marigolds.
In a striking detail, the one reserved for Modi identified him as president of “Bharat”, an ancient Sanskrit word used by Hindu nationalists and which has gained presence as the summit approached.
In the months before the heads of government summit in New Delhi, India had failed to reach an agreement on terms for Ukraine. Russia and China even opposed texts they had accepted at the 2022 G20 summit in Bali.
This year’s final statement, published the day before the official closing of the event, highlighted the “human suffering and the cumulative negative impacts of the war in Ukraine,” but made no mention of the Russian invasion. The text mentioned a United Nations letter that says that “all states must avoid the threat or use of force to seek territorial acquisition against the territorial integrity and sovereignty or political independence of any state. The use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is unacceptable.”
Instead, the Bali statement cited a United Nations resolution condemning “aggression by the Russian Federation against Ukraine” and said “the majority of members strongly condemned the war in Ukraine.”
Western leaders, who have pushed for a more categorical rejection of Russian actions at other G20 summits, still described the consensus as a success and praised India’s negotiating efforts. The lack of a final statement would have been something unprecedented and a blow to the group’s prestige.
Nazia Hussain, a research associate at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, said the statement showed “a lowering of terms on the war in Ukraine.”
“However, for New Delhi, getting a joint statement with some reference to Ukraine, or any joint statement at all, especially as the United States and its Western allies, as well as China and Russia, harden their position on the war, is a victory.” .
India had prioritized the needs of the developing world as the summit’s theme, and organizers worked to prevent the war in Ukraine from dominating the summit.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed last year’s G20 summit in Bali via video conference and then stole the show with an in-person appearance at the meeting of leaders of the G7 rich democracies – all members of the G20 – in Hiroshima this year.
Modi made it clear that he would not invite Zelenskyy to participate in this year’s event, although it is impossible to dissociate many issues, such as energy and food security, from the war in Ukraine.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told reporters it was significant that Russia had joined the agreement that mentioned Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Russian negotiator Svetlana Lukash described talks on the Ukraine passage in the final document as “very difficult,” adding that the agreed text was a “balanced view” of the situation, according to Russian media.
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