US President Joe Biden will travel to India on 7-10 September, the White House has said.
In what would be his first presidential visit to New Delhi, Biden will hold bilateral talks with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday and will attend the G-20 Summit at weekend before jetting off for Vietnam.
Addressing a press briefing at the White House on Tuesday, Biden’s National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said that the push towards “fundamentally reshaping and scaling up” the MDBs would be at top of Biden’s agenda at G-20.
He also said that Washington looked forward to “warmly welcoming” African Union (AU) as a permanent G-20 member at the New Delhi Summit.
However, India under its G-20 presidency has spelled out that addressing food and energy concerns of Global South, advocating reforms of global governance institutions and accelerating push towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) rank as its top priorities.
Divergences on Ukraine Conflict
Despite a degree of convergence on the need to reform MDBs, addressing problems of debt relief and an “inclusive digital transformation”, the US and India differ majorly on their stance on the Ukrainian conflict.
‘Negative Impact’ on G-20 Outcome
Anil Trigunayat, India’s former Ambassador to Jordan, Malta and Libya, told Sputnik India on Wednesday that continually divergent views among G-20 members on the Ukraine issue would have a negative impact on the most important summit outcomes.
The ex-diplomat said that these divergences were due to the “myopic foreign policy” of certain member countries, which haven’t fully appreciated the fact that the poorest nations were the worst sufferers due to the spillover effects of conflict.
“India has tried to forge consensus and be a bridge-builder. For India, the welfare and concerns of the Global South is paramount. The developing countries continue disproportionately suffer due to events engineered by powerful countries in pursuit of their geopolitical agendas,” Trigunayat stated.
Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov has said that a “general declaration” at the Summit was unlikely if Moscow’s position on Ukraine wasn’t reflected in the final outcome document.
None of the G-20 meetings held under the Indian presidency have produced a joint statement so far, largely due to differences over the inclusion of Bali geopolitical paragraphs.
Modi-Biden Meeting
Trigunayat reckoned that the scheduled bilateral meeting between Biden and Modi ahead of the G-20 Summit would figure discussions on New Delhi’s support for reforming the global governance structure, particularly the UN Security Council.
“India and US have a global comprehensive strategic partnership. Hence, during the interaction between President Biden and PM Modi, many important issues pertaining to reforms of MDBs, Bretton Woods institutions and other multilateral institutions are likely to be discussed,” the ex-diplomat said.
He stressed that support of all the countries remained “essential to maintain the relevance of these post WWII institutions,” a point that Modi may highlight to Biden during their talks.