Africa-Press – Lesotho. The above quotation is the response by Dr S Jaishankar during one of the several interviews that he had given during the course of the 18th G20 Summit in New Delhi held on 9/10 September.
The question related to the absence of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jingping, contrasting the latter’s absence to his attendance at the BRICS meeting in South Africa earlier.
Dr Jaishankar went on the explain that each country decided what would be its level of participation, and that in previous G20 meetings too top country leaders had not been present so this was not unusual.
However, what was more important, he said, was that the countries were represented. Thus, at the New Delhi meeting, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Chinese Premier Li Qiang participated fully after being welcomed with all the honours accorded to all the other leaders who came.
At this stage it is opportune to clear a much ventilated speculation prior to the Summit as to whether the absence of these two leaders would impact the outcome, especially in relation to the position that the Summit would take about the Ukraine conflict. Some members apparently wanted a specific mention of Russia.
However, in the end the Leaders’ Declaration reflected what had been aimed at: a consensus document in which they all participated actively and fully because, as Dr Jaishankar had pointed out repeatedly this was the result of more than 200 meetings held across 60 cities in Bharat, from Cochin in the south to Kashmir in the north, Mumbai in the west to Manipur in the east, involving over 20,000 participants from the member countries and mobilizing almost 100,000 people locally to welcome the participants by showcasing their respective states.
And these meetings of Ministers and Working Groups had been held from the time that Bharat took over the presidency of G20 from Indonesia last year in Bali.
Further, as President Lula of Brazil pointed out in his address after the gavel was handed over to him by PM Modi, the G20 was primarily an economic forum, and all were agreed that they wouldn’t allow geopolitical issues, namely the Ukraine conflict, to come in the way of a consensus.
And consensus there indeed was, as is evidenced in the final document, which has no footnotes whatsoever. Anyone who has participated at global level in working out such documents (e.
g. , at WHO) will appreciate how laborious and time consuming they can be, when deliberations over a comma, a mot juste, or a sentence can rack the diverse minds pouring over them till.
.
. consensus is reached!
There has been complete transparency at all stages leading to the Summit, and one has only to look at the list of 25 items and their sub-items in the ‘Documents Annexed to the G20 New Delhi Leaders’ Declaration, 2023 Ministerial Meetings and Working Group Documents’ to gauge the swathe and depth of deliberations that engaged the wide-ranging expertise and efforts of the dedicated and conscientious domain specialists and supporting staff who toiled over nearly 200 hours to produce that Declaration. It is available online and covers 37 pages for anyone who would wish to dig deeper into the contents.
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