A meeting of G20 finance ministers in Bengaluru has ended in disagreement after Russia and China refused to agree to a statement condemning Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and opposing the use of nuclear weapons.
The meeting broke up on Saturday without agreement on a joint communiqué by members’ finance ministers and central bank governors.
Instead, India, which holds the G20 Presidency, released a “Presidency Summary and Outcome Document”. It was supported by delegates from 17 of the group’s 20 members, including the world’s largest developed and developing countries; Russia and China did not support it.
The document reiterated the position of G20 leaders at a summit in Bali last year when they “strongly regretted” Russia’s war on Ukraine and called for Russia’s “full and unconditional” withdrawal from Ukrainian territory.
The document also reiterated the Bali summit’s declaration that “the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is impermissible.”
Ajay Seth of India’s finance ministry said Russian and Chinese delegates who did not attend the Bengaluru meeting in person argued that the war and its aftermath went beyond the mandate of finance ministers and central bank governors.
Other members “believed that the war was having an impact on the world economy, so having these paragraphs was right,” he said.
The disagreements over the communiqué highlight tensions within the G20 over its members’ positions on the war.
The summary document said that “most” members except Russia and China strongly condemned the war in Ukraine, which “is causing immense human suffering and exacerbating existing vulnerabilities in the global economy.”
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Nirmala Sitharaman, India’s finance minister, refused to say whether India was among those condemning the war. On Thursday, India, along with China, abstained in a vote at the UN General Assembly condemning the war. Russia voted against the UN resolution.
Sitharaman said India signed the G20 leaders’ statement in Bali, which borrowed the language of Saturday’s summary document.
Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner said the failure to reach an agreement on the communiqué was “regrettable”. “But it was more important to me that everyone else took a clear position on international law, multilateralism and the end of the war,” said Lindner.
“It is becoming difficult for the G20 to engage in constructive discussions because Russia has invaded Ukraine, which is an act that shakes the foundations of the global order,” Japanese Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki told reporters in a Portal report Remark.
Bruno Le Maire, France’s finance minister, said on Friday that France would refuse to sign a communiqué calling for a withdrawal from the Bali declaration.
Additional coverage from Portal