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External affairs minister S Jaishankar on Monday said that the G20 Summit bridged “strong positions and deep divides”, and the outcomes were far better than what most people expected.
“About three weeks ago, I was in New York for the United Nations General Assembly. I must share with you that the G20 was very much the subject of conversation. A lot of people were still a little surprised that the G20 could bridge what were strong positions and deep divides,” he said at a G20 tree plantation ceremony at Nehru Park in Delhi.
The G20 member states adopted a consensus leaders’ declaration for their summit in Delhi last month after prolonged negotiations on the outcome document that had been held up over a reference to the Ukraine crisis.
“Many other countries also took particular satisfaction at the permanent membership of the African Union at the G20. But overall, there was a sense in global diplomacy that this G20 actually delivered very substantively on what were the most pressing issues of the day. It turned out far better than most people expected,” the minister said.
India achieved a consensus on the historic Delhi Declaration of the G20 by leveraging diplomacy, goodwill, personal relationships, and straightforward messaging, as previously reported by HT. India told the West that flexibility over terminology on Russia’s aggression in Ukraine would help G20 arrive at a declaration. It also indicated that if the Indian presidency failed in the quest, not only did the summit risk being a failure, but there was also a bigger risk of China’s efforts to carve out an alternative international power structure gaining traction.
“As we bask in the afterglow of the Summit (G20), I am often asked – tell me what did you really get done? When I look at what we got done, to me the four-five key takeaways were the action plan for the SDG (Sustainable Development Goals) which directly fed into the SDG Summit which happened after the G20 – the Green Development Pact, the message of women-led development, the support for digital public infrastructure, the LiFE Mission. At the end of it all, there was a very strong sustainability, green, global south image that came out of the G20,” Jaishankar said.
G20 Summit ‘bridged deep divides’, says Jaishankar – Hindustan Times
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