India’s prime minister Narendra Modi, centre, is joined by G20 delegates, left to right, Emmanuel Macron, Joko Widodo, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Joe Biden, at the Mahatma Gandhi memorial on Sunday © PIB/AFP/Getty Images
Western nations accept ‘climbdown’ on Ukraine to salvage G20’s relevance
US, EU and others agreed to remove condemnation of Putin’s invasion from meeting’s communiqué
It took until close to midnight on Friday for a handful of leading developing countries to propose their compromise. Accept this, was the pitch, or bear the consequences of a fractured G20.
After five days of gruelling discussions, the western delegates took the deal. When their bosses assembled the next day at the summit in New Delhi, the scale of their concession was made stark.
The US, EU and other western allies had agreed to remove condemnation of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine from the meeting’s communique, in exchange for pledges from all 20 states — including Russia and China — to respect territorial integrity and work towards a “just peace” for Kyiv.
“This is a climbdown,” said Sarang Shidore, director of the Quincy Institute’s Global South programme. The degree to which the western allies were willing to compromise, despite Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Putin skipping the summit, highlighted just how keen they were to salvage the credibility of a grouping that had come under severe pressure since Russia invaded Ukraine just over 18 months ago…
READ THE REST FROM THE SOURCE: https://www.ft.com/content/5e8412b5-7333-49b1-b2f3-5b4cf2ee6096?segmentID=dc0a9f57-51f8-2c48-3cb3-4b42eb8c679c&fbclid=IwAR0Z608OOnaeQPEanz-MSWriQ3hQ-OHhNT3mWTniDfiyj4xGm6a7tlOCsE8