STRATEGIC ASSESSMENT-New Delhi. Foreign Affairs Minister Retno Marsudi spoke at a G20 foreign ministers meeting in New Delhi, India, on Thursday, warning that if the war in Ukraine continues, the global situation will worsen.
She called for ending the war in Ukraine and urged for continued efforts to find a peaceful solution. She also urged the G20 to serve as a catalyst for reviving the spirit of global collaboration in order to accelerate global recovery and put an end to the conflict in Ukraine.
The G20 foreign ministers’ meeting in New Delhi, India, served as a forum to call for an evaluation of the global order, which is currently seen as one of the causes of many global issues. The current global architecture, according to Indian Foreign Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaisankar, does not reflect the political reality, economy, or current demographics.
Indonesian Foreign Affairs Minister Retno Marsudi and other FMs discussed justice and inclusive cooperation during the meeting. Retno brought up the subject of justice to draw attention to the Palestinian issue. Some nations are thought to have applied different standards for humanitarian issues in Palestine due to their ignorance.
In the meeting, Retno said an inclusive security architecture was needed for peace, stability, and prosperity. Without an inclusive security architecture, the world faces consequences like the Ukraine war. Indonesia doesn’t want conditions in Ukraine to spread. Thus, Indonesia is promoting multilateralism and inclusive regional security architecture in the Indo-Pacific.
Foreign Affairs Minister Retno Marsudi said the conflict in Ukraine has highlighted the importance of upholding international law and developing an inclusive regional security architecture.
She said Indonesia, as ASEAN chair this year, will prioritize encouraging the concrete implementation of the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific (AOIP). The outlook reaffirms ASEAN’s position in maintaining peace, stability, and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region, which includes Asia-Pacific and the Indian Ocean.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged G20 nations to focus on resolving the Russia-Ukraine conflict. India, as the host, refused to condemn the Russian invasion and instead called for dialogue to end the conflict.
The United States and its European allies sparred with Russia on Thursday over the war in Ukraine and urged the G20 nations to keep up pressure on Moscow to end a conflict that they said had destabilized the world.
Russia hit back, accusing the West of turning work on the G20 agenda into a “farce” and said Western delegations wanted to shift responsibility for their economic failures onto Moscow.
“We must continue to call on Russia to end its war of aggression and withdraw from Ukraine for the sake of international peace and economic stability,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.
According to Spokesperson Ned Price, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken met today with Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi in New Delhi, India, on the margins of the G20 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting.
In a follow-up to their February 16 conversation, Secretary Blinken and Foreign Minister Marsudi highlighted U.S. cooperation with ASEAN during Indonesia’s ASEAN chair year.
Also highlighted was Indonesia’s leadership on the issue of women and girls’ education in Afghanistan and they also discussed regional and global security challenges, including the ongoing crisis in Burma.
The year-long Russian war in Ukraine took center stage on the eve of a G20 foreign ministers’ meeting in New Delhi on Wednesday with the EU foreign policy chief saying its success would be measured by what it could do to help end the conflict. Russia said it would use the meeting to tell the world who, according to Moscow, was responsible for the political and economic crises the world finds itself in.
The foreign ministers’ meeting comes days after a meeting of finance chiefs of G20 countries in Bengaluru that was also overshadowed by the Ukraine conflict. Delegates at the Bengaluru meeting wrangled over condemning Russia for the war, failed to reach a consensus on a joint statement and settled instead for a summary document.
“This war has to be condemned,” Josep Borrell, the European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, told reporters. “I hope, I am sure that India’s diplomatic capacity will be used in order to make Russia understand that this war has to finish,” Borrell said. An EU source separately said the EU delegation would not support a statement at the G20 meeting if it did not include condemnation of the war.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergei Lavrov will attend the G20 meeting in New Delhi on Wednesday. Blinken said he would not meet Lavrov at the meeting. The G20 foreign ministers’ meeting on Thursday will be the first time the two men have met since the Bali meeting in July.
“If Russia were genuinely prepared to engage in meaningful diplomacy necessary to end the aggression, of course, we’d be the first to work on that and to engage. But there is zero evidence of that,” Blinken said to reporters in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, en route to New Delhi, according to AFP.
The Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry said Lavrov would reach out to the West at the G20. “Western nations want to take revenge for the inevitable disappearance of the levers of dominance from its hands. The destructive policy of the U.S. and its allies has already put the world on the brink of a disaster,” the Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry said in an English statement.
