India hosting G20 foreign ministers amid increasing rift between Russia and West on Ukraine conflict

A number of foreign ministers of non-G20 countries including Sri Lanka and Bangladesh are also attending the meet following India's invitation as guests

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will host his counterparts from the G20 nations in a meeting here on Thursday, although New Delhi is not sure if the conclave will end with a joint communique, as the western nations appear to be keen to use the forum to take on Russia for its aggression against Ukraine.

If the joint statement cannot be issued, Jaishankar may issue a Chair’s Summary and Outcome Document, outlining the areas of both convergence and divergence.

“I do not think it would be really correct for me to prejudge the outcome of the G20 foreign ministers' meeting...We are very clear that the (G20) foreign ministers should focus on all the priorities that are currently relevant in the global context,” Foreign Secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra told journalists in New Delhi.

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“Given the nature and the developing situation in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, naturally that would be an important point of discussion during the G20 foreign ministers meeting,” said Kwatra, adding that the impact of the conflict on the rest of the world, particularly its economic fallout and the challenges it made the developing countries face were “equally important” issues to focus on.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will attend the G20 conclave. He will on the other hand try to turn the table on the western nations, holding the “destructive policy of the US and its allies” responsible for already putting the world on the brink of a disaster, provoking a rollback in socio-economic development and seriously aggravating the situation of the poorest countries, according to a statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Government of Russia.

Read | Russia-Ukraine conflict may overshadow G20 Foreign Ministers' meeting too

Jaishankar had bilateral meetings with several of his guests, including the foreign secretary of the UK, James Cleverly, and Josep Borrell, the European Union's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, on Wednesday. “For UK, Russia's invasion of Ukraine is unacceptable. We're helping to defend United Nations charter, sovereignty and territorial integrity (from being undermined by Russia’s war against Ukraine). We hope this war comes to a swift conclusion,” said Cleverly.

“This war has to be condemned,” Borrell told journalists in New Delhi, adding: “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.”

The US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, too already arrived in New Delhi to attend the meeting of the G20 Foreign Ministers.

Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang will also attend the conclave in New Delhi.

Sources in New Delhi said that the US and the other western nations had already conveyed to host India that they would not accept a joint statement out of the meeting of the G20 Foreign Ministers on Thursday if it failed to strongly condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Russia, on the other hand, is expected to block the joint communique, if it reflects the western condemnation of its “special military operations” in Ukraine. It is likely to be supported by China.

Russia and China last week blocked a joint communique that was expected to be issued after the meeting of the G20 finance ministers and the central bank governors in Bengaluru. Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, and the Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, Shaktikanta Das, had to issue a chair’s statement, summarising the discussion during the meeting. They clarified that Russia and China objected to the two paragraphs of the chair’s summary – the ones, which condemned Russia’s war against Ukraine and referred to its impact on the global economy.