France’s foreign minister today urged the G20, meeting in New Delhi, to “call for a just and lasting peace” in Ukraine, given the country’s war “based on lies”.
In an intervention, Catherine Colonna argued that the Russian invasion of Ukraine “violated all the laws of war and humanity”.
“The G20 must respond clearly, as it has already done at the Bali Summit and at the United Nations Assembly,” the official said at the meeting of foreign ministers of the world’s 20 most industrialized countries.
The war in Ukraine is one of the topics that dominates the agenda. One of the difficulties of the meeting will be to agree on a joint statement on the war, similar to what was reached at the G20 leaders’ summit in Bali last November, under Indonesia’s rotating presidency.
This year, the G20 presidency falls to India.
“We need to find ways to protect the most vulnerable instead of letting the Russian-made war harm everyone,” the French diplomacy chief added.
The United States and the European Union on the one hand and China and Russia on the other hand are expected to take a stand so that India as president ends the geopolitical and economic crisis caused by the invasion of Russia. .
The position of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, which has so far not explicitly condemned Russia’s actions, is sometimes seen as covert support for the Kremlin.
This is despite Modi telling Russian President Vladimir Putin in September that it was not wartime, a statement that has been interpreted as criticism of the invasion of Ukraine. The international community now looks to New Delhi to bridge Moscow’s international isolation.
Representatives from the group’s 20 countries were invited to the meeting, including Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and China’s head of diplomacy Qin Gang.
Source: DN
