US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reportedly spoke briefly at the G20 meeting in India. Due to the war in Ukraine, the G20 ministers did not agree on a joint final declaration.
New Delhi – “Blinken asked to get in touch with Lavrov,” Lavrov’s spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday, according to Russian news agency TASS. The brief conversation took place on the sidelines of a meeting of G20 foreign ministers in India’s capital, New Delhi, but there was no formal meeting or even negotiations.
It was the first face-to-face meeting between Yonkers, New York-born Blinken, and Moscow-born Lavrov since Russia invaded Ukraine more than a year ago. According to the American newspaper “New York Times”, Blinken told his Russian colleague that the United States continued to support the Ukraine under attack, that Russia should resume the “New Start” disarmament treaty recently suspended by the head of the Kremlin Vladimir Putin, and that Russia should Citizen Paul Whelan should be released.
G20 ministerial meeting without joint communiqué because of the war in Ukraine
Foreign ministers from major industrialized and emerging countries (G20) failed to agree on a joint final declaration during their meeting in India’s capital New Delhi due to the dispute over the war in Ukraine. Instead, India’s presidency released its own summary of the deliberations on Thursday. Most states again condemned the Russian war of aggression in the strongest terms and demanded an unconditional withdrawal from Ukrainian territory. The foreign ministers of Russia and China, Sergei Lavrov and Qin Gang, disagreed with the two paragraphs concerned.
At the meeting of G20 finance ministers last week, there was no joint statement and divergent positions from Russia and China.
Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar told reporters after the meeting that no joint final statement had been made given the “highly polarized views of some countries”. He underlined that India had made great efforts to find a compromise. Jaishankar said the ministers reached agreement on many issues including the need for reform, multilateralism, food security, global health and climate change. Even in previous meetings of G20 foreign ministers, there had never been a joint statement. (dpa)
