US ‘Obsession’ with Ukraine is Rendering G20 Redundant, Ex-Envoy Warns
The two-day G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors (FMCBG) event concluded on Tuesday in India’s Gujarat state without a joint communique due to differences over Ukraine, as per reports.
SputnikThe US-led “obsession” with making Ukraine part of the agenda of the G20 has effectively left the multinational grouping “redundant”, a former Indian diplomat has told Sputnik.
“The US seems to have decided that it no longer needs the G20 platform, which was formed as a response to the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2008,” remarked Talmiz Ahmad, a former Indian ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Oman and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The former diplomat said that the US didn’t seem interested at all in addressing pressing developmental issues, namely debt distress, food and energy security and climate transition financing, concerning the low and middle-income countries.
“The US has been using the G20 and other multilateral organizations as a platform to promote its strategic and geopolitical interests, which is why it keeps on prioritizing strategic issues over more pressing developmental challenges of the Global South,” Ahmad said.
Ahmad blamed the US for "fuelling" the Ukraine conflict through billions of dollars in military assistance to maintain its "global hegemony."
The strong remarks by the ex-diplomat come against the backdrop of the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors (FMCBG) meeting in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, reportedly concluding without a joint communique due to differences between Russia, China and the G7 nations over the phrasing of Ukraine-related paragraphs in the outcome document.
Several key meetings under India’s G20 presidency, including the Foreign Ministers Meeting (FMM) in March and the Development Ministers Meeting (DMM) last month, have failed to produce a joint communique, with the participants instead having to contend with a 'Chair's Summary'.
Russia’s G20 Sous-Sherpa Marat Berdyev told the Varanasi meeting last month that the inclusion of “Bali geopolitical paragraphs” in the final statement was done under “pressure from the West."
The US’ intransigence on making Ukraine part of the G20 agenda comes despite India’s insistence that it wants to
prioritize the issues of Global South over the Ukraine conflict, a stand shared by Moscow and Beijing.
India’s G20 Sherpa Amitabh Kant told local media this month that “our priority is developmental issues such as emerging markets, global debt, and sustainable development goals."
“Our priority is not the Ukraine issue, we will discuss this towards the end, not at this time…” Kant was quoted as saying by Deccan Herald (DH).
US Vows to ‘Double’ Support for Ukraine at G20
In a complete contrast to the stance of India's G20 presidency, the US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has vowed to “redouble our support for Ukraine," as she addressed a presser in Gandhinagar on the margins of the G20 meeting.
She described Washington’s continued support for Ukraine as a “priority” for the Biden administration at various fora, including at the G20.
“As I’ve said, ending this war is first and foremost a moral imperative. But it’s also the single best thing we can do for the global economy,” Yellen claimed.
She pushed back against the idea that there was a “trade-off between our support for Ukraine and our support for the south," saying the US was equally focused on tackling issues such as debt distress, multilateral development banking (MDB) reforms and climate financing.
India Calls for ‘Enhanced International Economic Coordination’
Meanwhile, Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman called for “enhanced international economic coordination” to address the continuing uncertainty around the global economic outlook.
She expressed concerns around “fragmentation” of the global economy and the “food and energy insecurity."
Kristalina Georgieva, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), told the meeting that geopolitical “fragmentation” could affect the global economic growth.
“Inflation could remain higher for longer, requiring even more monetary policy tightening, and fragmentation could weigh even more on growth. To mitigate these risks, I call upon G20 leaders to seize the opportunity to move the global economy onto a more vibrant medium-term path. This requires both domestic and international policy action,” she said.
The IMF boss underlined that it was imperative upon nations to “strengthen the global safety net” to cushion the low and middle-income states from global economic "shocks" such as
food and energy insecurity, debt distress and the effects of climate change.
“While advanced and strong emerging market economies have a cushion of more than $10 trillion in international reserves, the rest of the world relies on pooled resources of international institutions such as the IMF,” she told the G20 gathering of finance ministers and central bank governors.