At the same time, according to the agency, Russia's participation in the summit does not allow this to be done
LONDON, September 7. /tass/. India, which is hosting the G20 summit this week, suggests that the final declaration of the meeting participants should include the positions of Russia and China on the conflict in Ukraine. This is reported by Reuters with reference to Indian officials.
According to him, Western countries want the final document to contain a strong condemnation of Moscow's actions in Ukraine, but Russia's participation in the summit does not allow this. To facilitate the coordination of the statement, India proposes to include in it a paragraph condemning the special military operation of the Russian Federation in Ukraine and at the same time reflect the positions of Moscow and Beijing, including the fact that the international forum is not a place for geopolitical disputes, writes Reuters.
"Provided that everyone agrees on the [such] structure of the document, there will be consensus. We strive to ensure that everyone, including Russia, the Group of Seven countries and China, is satisfied that their points of view are reflected in the document," one of the interlocutors told Reuters. According to him, the Sherpas of the summit participants have been discussing draft versions of the upcoming declaration since the beginning of the week.
The second source of the agency indicated that a backup option would be a document with more general wording concerning the conflict.
In November last year, a fierce dispute between the participants of the G20 summit in Bali was caused by an item regarding the condemnation of military actions in Ukraine. At the end of the summit, Indonesian President Joko Widodo said that this issue had become the most discussed and the most difficult, but the document still managed to be agreed. In the history of the G20 summits, there have never been cases when the final declaration was not adopted. Experts interviewed by Reuters believe that such a precedent would be a serious blow to the prestige of the forum.
The G20 summit in New Delhi will be held on September 9-10 in a face-to-face format. The leaders of all the countries of the Group of Twenty, as well as nine other states (Bangladesh, Egypt, Spain, Mauritius, Nigeria, the Netherlands, the UAE, Oman and Singapore) are invited to it. Russia will be represented at the summit by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.