G20 Nears Consensus on Wording for Russia-Ukraine War

Russia and China have been vehemently opposing any reference to the Ukraine war in the draft declaration…reports Asian Lite News

Amid hectic parleys over finding a consensus on that wordings for the Russia-Ukraine war, the G20 diplomats are learnt to have arrived at a “compromise language” to describe the conflict, as per reports.

However the language will require approval from the G20 leaders before it’s inclusion in the final declaration, which will be released on September 10 after the culmination of the two-day summit in New Delhi.

Prior to this, officials involved in drafting the final outcome document’s language, had arrived on a consensus over issues of climate and economy, reports said.

The most complex part of the entire #G20 was to bring consensus on the geopolitical paras (Russia-Ukraine). This was done over 200 hours of non -stop negotiations, 300 bilateral meetings, 15 drafts. In this, I was greatly assisted by two brilliant officers – @NagNaidu08 & @eenamg pic.twitter.com/l8bOEFPP37

— Amitabh Kant (@amitabhk87) September 10, 2023

As the consensus over the language has been arrived at after apparently overcoming differences between Russia and other G20 nations, it is being described as “compromise language”, reports quoting sources said.

While the paragraph related to Ukraine conflict had been left blank during hard negotiations among G20 Sherpas on September Thursday and Friday, there was broad consensus on 75 other paragraphs of the draft outcome document related to climate finance, crypto currency and multilateral development banks (MDBs), reports quoting sources said.

Russia and China have been vehemently opposing any reference to the Ukraine war in the draft declaration.

On Friday, while replying to a question on whether the absence of Chinese and Russian Presidents Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin from the G20 Summit could lead to removal of Ukraine conflict’s reference from the final outcome document, Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra had said that the priority should be multilateral.

“There should be consensus, which needs to be representative, accountable, transparent and inclusive and it will be ensured that this reflects in the final declaration,” he had said.

India’s G20 Sherpa Amitabh Kant had said that the Delhi Declaration will be finalised once it is approved by all the leaders participating in the summit.

Kant said on Friday that he was only the Sherpa of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and that the recommendations in the summit are given to the leaders, and once they get approved, the contents of the declaration will be put out publicly.

“Do realise the confidentiality of the declaration. We will elaborate on it once the contents are approved by the leaders,” Kant had reiterated.

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