Russian Foreign Minister Serguei Lavrov landed on the Indonesian island of Bali this Sunday (13) to attend the G20 summit, where he will represent President Vladimir Putin.
On Friday, 11 the Kremlin justified the Russian president’s absence from the summit due to “programming issues”, but the decision was understood as a sign of isolation and protectionism in the face of criticism amid the military intervention in Ukraine.
The Russian minister landed on an official Russian plane from Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, to Denpasar airport, where he attended the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit.
In a statement, the Russian Foreign Ministry urged the G20 to focus not on security issues, but on the economic issues for which this forum, featuring the world’s largest economies, was designed.
“We categorically reject the politicization of the G20, the inclusion of irrelevant and deliberately contradictory issues in discussions, and the isolation of participants based on unfounded accusations.”
Lavrov, still in Cambodia, accused the US of wanting to militarize the Asia-Pacific region in order to control China.
“The United States and its allies and NATO are trying to conquer the Asia-Pacific,” Russia’s foreign minister told reporters in Phnom Penh.
“They are clearly planning to militarize this region in order to contain China and limit Russia’s interests in the region,” he insisted.
Southeast Asia is the scene of growing rivalry between the US and China, who pit against each other in the struggle for economic and security influence.
US President Joe Biden arrived in Bali this Sunday night.
Before the summit on Tuesday and Wednesday, he will meet with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, in a context marked by the North Korean missile crisis and disagreements over Taiwan’s “status”.
Beijing also sees the Quadrilateral alliance, a security group that includes Australia, the United States, Japan and India, as an attempt to isolate itself in Asia.
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© Agence France-Presse
source: Noticias
