G20 talks end with no consensus on Ukraine

NEW DELHI — Top diplomats from the Group of 20 members ended their meeting in New Delhi on Thursday with no consensus on the Ukraine conflict, India's foreign minister said.

Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said there were "divergences" on the issue of the conflict in Ukraine "which we could not reconcile as various parties held differing views".

"If we had a perfect meeting of minds on all issues, it would have been a collective statement," Jaishankar said. He added that members agreed on most issues involving the concerns of less developed nations, "like strengthening multilateralism, promoting food and energy security, climate change, gender issues and counterterrorism".

Thursday's talks began with a video address to the foreign ministers by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "We are meeting at a time of deep global divisions," Modi told the group. "We all have our positions and our perspectives on how these tensions should be resolved."

Speaking of the meeting's outcome, China's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said on Friday that as the leaders of all G20 members have made it clear during the Bali Summit last year, the G20 is a premier forum for international economic cooperation and not a forum to resolve security issues.

Promoting recovery

She said China believes the G20 should follow through on the leaders' common understandings, focus on its responsibility and make contributions to promoting a stable, inclusive and sustainable economic recovery.

"Given that the international situation is in turmoil with a lot of challenges, we hope that the G20 can show responsibility and make due contributions to world economic recovery and development," Mao said.

She said she has noted that some G20 members hold different views on the Ukraine crisis. "We hope that the members can respect each other and send the voice of solidarity and cooperation rather than divisions or accusations against each other."

On the sidelines of the G20 conference, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken talked briefly on Thursday in the first high-level meeting in months between the two countries. The Russian foreign ministry said Lavrov and Blinken spoke "on the move" for less than 10 minutes at the end of the closed-door session and did not engage in any negotiations, Russian news agencies reported.

It came as fighting rages in Bakhmut and Washington is expected to announce a new $400 million military aid package for the Kyiv government, which is set to be a major topic between US President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz when they meet at the White House, officials said.

Meanwhile, Ukraine said there have been 38 prisoner swaps with Russia since March 2022.

Mo Jingxi contributed to this story.

Agencies - Xinhua