G20 summit: the legacy of a meeting marred by war and a dangerous accident

The G20 leader Wednesday concluded a summit in Indonesia marked by the war in Ukraine, crossed in the last few hours by the uncertainty of a possible Russian attack on NATO, and chapters of world leaders who ended up in hospital.

The Bali summit brought down the curtain with a “strong condemnation” of the war between Ukraine and Russia, amid renewed tensions over the fall of a missile in Poland, an issue that slipped onto the agenda during the second and final day of debate .

Tensions were turned off on Wednesday when it was confirmed that the shell was a Ukrainian missile which had accidentally deflected its course.

At the hospital

But the summit began with versions that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had been taken to the local hospital twice, something Moscow called “fake news” and debunked by showing a video of the minister in shorts, on what it seemed to be the terrace . from your hotel.

However, media outlets that covered the summit, such as the Associated Press, consulted various sources who confirmed, everything, that Lavrov went to a local health center on Sunday when he arrived, and the next day. No one could pinpoint the reason.

Another official who was six hours hospitalized It was the Argentine president Alberto Fernández, due to erosive gastritis, who worried the national delegation.

Bilaterals and final declaration

The bilateral meetings of the highest level also marked the pace of the meeting, in particular the summit between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping in view of the global conclave.

The summit concluded with the final declaration, approved by all countries, including Russia itself, in which “most G20 members strongly condemn the war in Ukraine”.

In the 55-page communiqué with various attachments, the top management admitted that “there were other and different points of view assessments of the situation and sanctions” against Moscow.

Presidents, prime ministers and other dignitaries have acknowledged that the G20 “this is not the forum for solving security problems” and states that these “security problems can have significant consequences for the world economy”.

“It is the first joint statement that has been made since February 2022,” said Indonesian President and host of the meeting, Joko Widodo.

“Stop the War”

“Stop the war. I repeat: stop the war. The stakes are high. The war will only bring misery to the people”, he said in a message during the last discussion session dedicated to digital transformations and then repeated in the press conference.

G20 leaders said in the final communiqué that the conflict in Ukraine resulting from the Russian invasion was causing “immense human suffering exacerbating existing fragilities in the world economy”.

Also, they considered “inadmissible” the use of nuclear weapons or threats to resort to them, and called for the “continuation” of deals signed in July to export war-locked Ukrainian grains and sanctions-hit Russian fertilizers.

Those pacts, ckeys to food safety in the world they expire next Saturday and there is still no certainty that they will be extended.

However, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, “gave him the green light to renew the deal”.

“There are ongoing discussions and for now my opinion is that it will continue without any problems,” the president said at a press conference held during the G20 summit in Bali and after holding bilateral talks with the German head of government, Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholtz.

“During previous conversations with Putin, he gave me the green light to renew these agreements,” he added, anticipating that on his return from Indonesia he would speak again with the Kremlin leader.

Ukraine is one of the leading producers of cereals of the world, but has had up to 20 million tons of grain stranded in its ports due to Russia’s invasion.

This was overturned with the agreement signed in July, with the mediation of Turkey and the UN, but the Kremlin questions its continuity arguing that the part that facilitated the sale of its fertilizers has not been respected and that the food from Ukraine it is not to go to the countries that need it most.

the missile

The last G20 plenary session took place digital transformations, But the agenda and the bilateral meetings were conditioned by the fall of a missile in Poland, near the border with Ukraine, which killed two people.

Poland and NATO said the missile would be fired from Ukraine’s air defenses, not Russia, to defend against a wave of attacks launched by Russia on Tuesday against several Ukrainian cities.

Hours earlier, the leaders of the G7 countries and NATO who were in Bali they set up an emergency meetingand, in a subsequent statement, US President Joe Biden said preliminary information points to it It is unlikely” that the missile was launched from Russia.

The Ukrainian president, Volodimir Zelenski, also spoke on the matter, who told the leaders of the G20 “there is a terrorist state” among them, and accused the Kremlin of launching the missile that landed in Poland and killed two people.

Bullet drop is “a real message brought by Russia to the G20 summit”, Zelensky said in the second video conference message he gave as part of the summit.

On the contrary, Macron persisted in the G20 be “very careful” on the origin of the missiles that fell in Poland, but underlined that Ukraine has been subjected “for weeks” to a “massive” launch of Russian missiles against civilian infrastructure, especially energy.

Beyond the tension generated by the episode and the emergency meetings, leaders agreed to continue their agenda at the G20 as usual.

In this sense, at the beginning of the day, the heads of state and government and the foreign ministers they planted mangroves, a local tree that plays a key role in mitigating global climate change and which in many areas has been cleared to build shrimp farms.

Then they moved to The Apurva Kempinski hotel, the same one that hosted Tuesday’s sessions, to discuss digital transformations, one of the axes of the summit together with food and energy security and health.

The Indian presidency of the G20

Later, Widodo handed over the presidency of the G20 to Indiawhich will be the country in charge of organizing ministerial and heads of state meetings in 2023.

The forum host striking a hammer repeatedly to symbolically mark the end of the summit hosted by your country and then handed over to the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi.

Later in the day, the leaders who attended the forum began to return to their respective countries, which Sergei Lavrov did prematurely.

With the departure of the heads of state, this has begun to be noticed on the streets the minimum presence of military and police who during all these days have shielded Nusa Dua, the area of ​​huge tourist complexes located along the beach which has been the epicenter of G20 activities.

Agencies