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Sep 24 – Sergey Lavrov, the foreign minister of Russia, described the G20 Leaders’ Declaration as being “objective” regarding the geopolitical situation and Ukraine.
“I think that the text of that summit was objective, not only when it comes to Ukraine, which is only mentioned once but it was objective about the geopolitical situation as a whole,” he said on Saturday at a news conference here.
The Declaration, the outcome of India’s consensus-building efforts, did not specifically reference Russia but did contain passages that may be interpreted as condemning Moscow’s actions in Ukraine.
It said: “All states must act in a manner consistent with the Purposes and Principles of the UN Charter in its entirety. In line with the UN Charter, all states must refrain from the threat or use of force to seek territorial acquisition against the territorial integrity and sovereignty or political independence of any state.”
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The Declaration also “highlighted the human suffering and negative added impacts of the war in Ukraine.”
As for geopolitics, Lavrov noted that it said that “all conflicts need to be considered not just those that one has a specific interest in.”
For example, it also mentioned the Palestine situation, he said.
Lavrov made a comparison between the G20 Declaration and the conclusions from other conferences, when he claimed the West insisted on criticizing Moscow.
“They just completely exhausted everyone with their incessant demands for the outcome documents to denounce Russia,” he said.
“It is the West that is trying to blame Russia and Russia’s actions in Ukraine for all the world’s problems and they’re not successful in this,” he said referring to the G20 Declaration.
Lavrov criticised the working of the UN and said that Moscow supports Security Council reform to make the organisation “sustained and legitimate in nature”.
He rejected both the Ukrainian peace initiative and the idea put out by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to revive the Black Sea Grain Initiative.
He scoffed at claims that he had “rejected” Guterres’ with a grammatical twist that Moscow had only rejected portions of it, citing difficulties in obtaining payments for grain shipments due to financial restrictions.
In the midst of a war and naval blockades, the Grain Deal, which the UN and Turkiye mediated, enabled for the transport of food grains from Russia and Ukraine through the Black Sea.
The peace plan proposed by Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, which includes the withdrawal of Russian troops from occupied territories, and restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, was unacceptable and the war will go on, he said.
