'Differences' over Ukraine conflict, no joint statement for G20 foreign ministers' meet: Jaishankar 

As the West and Russia divide continues to cast a shadow on India's G20 presidency, External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar said Thursday that in view of "differences" that "could not be reconciled" there will be no joint statement of the meeting.

"There were issues and very frankly they were concerned with the Ukraine conflict. There were divergences. There were differences, which we could not be reconciled," Jaishankar said.

However, the minister said that "in terms of the outcome document you will see that there was almost 90 per cent agreement. Just on two paras we were not able to get everybody on the same page - or para."

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"There were a large number of issues on which there was agreement, like strengthening multilateralism, promoting food and energy security, climate change, gender issues, counter terror...On the bulk of issues which concern the global south, there was a considerable meeting of minds that has been captured by outcome document," the Foreign Minister added.

The G20 foreign ministers' meeting comes days after India hosted the G20 finance ministers' meeting in Bengaluru in the Indian state of Karnataka which also resulted in a failure to reach an agreement over a joint statement.

"If we had a perfect meeting of minds on all issues, it would have been a collective statement."

India's G20 presidency comes at a crucial time when the war in Ukraine continues to wage on.Most G20 member nations condemned the ongoing conflict in Ukraine but China and Russia declined to sign the joint statement earlier at the finance ministers' meet.

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The conflict in Eastern Europe emerged as one of the major points of discussion during the finance ministers' meeting. As there was no consensus, the meeting had to be concluded without a joint communique and only a “chair’s summary and outcome document” which is said to simply summarise the talks and noted disagreements was released.

The western countries have imposed thousands of sanctions against Russia and some of its citizens since it began what it has described as its “special military operation” in Ukraine, in a bid to starve the country of its revenues.

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Since the beginning of the conflict, New Delhi has not condemned Moscow and was seen as reluctant to raise the issue at the meeting but the western countries asserted that they could not support any outcome that did not include a condemnation.

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