Monitoring Desk
NEW DELHI: The European Union (EU) foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Friday said he saw a “small improvement” in diplomacy with Russia at a Group of 20 meetings that saw rare US-Russia talks.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken held a brief meeting with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Thursday in New Delhi and pressed him over the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Borrell noted that Sergei Lavrov remained in the room when Western countries criticized Russia, unlike at the G20 foreign ministers’ summit in Bali last year, when he stormed out.
“At least this time, Lavrov stayed, and he listened. This is a small improvement, but it is important,” said Borrell at the Raisina Dialogue, a forum in New Delhi.
“I think it is better than nothing.”
Borrell maintained he would oppose any effort to kick out Russia from the G20, meant to represent major economies of the world, in line with the eviction of Russia a decade ago from the G7 — then the G8 — major industrial democracies.
“We have to keep talking, or at least listening if not talking,” Borrell said.
At the same forum, Lavrov accused the West of pressuring developing countries to turn on Russia.
He said, “Our Western friends were shouting ‘Russia must…! Russia must…! Russia must…!’ in the microphones,”.
He said Antony Blinken and other Western leaders have insisted in travels worldwide that “Russia must face strategic defeat.”
“They say this is existential for the Western world in the context of global domination,” Sergei Lavrov said.
Borrell defended encouragement to developing countries to oppose the war. He said that he was aware of effects such as higher food prices.
“I understand people from the Global South that say, we cannot bear the consequences of this war,” Borrell said.
“But look at who is guilty of this. Who is the one who created the issue?”
G20 summit ends without a joint statement
The G20 summit ended without a joint statement, but India released a statement that stated that China and Russia dissented on a call for Moscow to withdraw from Ukraine.
“That is movement diplomatically,” said Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly.
“For India to say that China and Russia were the only nations not reaching a consensus is a joint declaration.”
Joly said she also met with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov on Thursday and told him: “Russia needs to get out of Ukraine.”
Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said in Beijing that the G20 had clarified in Bali that it is “not the forum to address security issues.”
G20 members “have varying views on the issue of Ukraine,” she told reporters.
“We hope that G20 members will respect the concerns of each other and send a message of cooperation and solidarity instead of division and mutual recrimination.”
