The French foreign minister denounced a “dirty war” in India since the G20
Opening session of the G20 Foreign Ministers Meeting. Raising the flags of each participating country in New Delhi, India, Thursday, March 2, 2023. MANISH SWARUP / AP
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi opened a G20 meeting on Thursday by urging the group to heal its divisions over Ukraine, saying global governance has “failed” to address the world’s pressing challenges.
India, which chairs the Group of Twenty this year, has a longstanding friendship with Russia and has not condemned the invasion of Ukraine. New Delhi is also a major customer of Moscow in the military sphere and has increased its imports of Russian oil in the past year, in contrast to western countries. In a sign of division within the G20, US chief of diplomacy Antony Blinken announced that he has no plans to meet his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov.
In the Indian capital, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna on Thursday called on the G20 “to respond clearly to Russia’s war in Ukraine, as at last year’s Bali summit, and to create a “sense of shared responsibility rather than a sense of joint responsibility.” to show fragmentation, a systematic opposition”. It is a “dirty war which, moreover, is being waged in violation of all the laws of war and in violation of simple humanity,” Ms Colonna said in her address to the G20.
On Wednesday, European Union diplomatic chief Josep Borrell said he was confident India would use this G20 meeting to “make Russia understand that this war must end”.
According to a press release from his ministry, Sergey Lavrov will use his participation in the G20 to attack the West. “The destructive policies of the United States and its allies have already brought the world to the brink of disaster, caused a setback in socio-economic development and seriously worsened the situation of the poorest countries,” the document released on Tuesday said. .