Russian President Vladimir Putin not to attend G20 summit in India in person
Russian President Vladimir Putin
Russian President Vladimir Putin will not attend the upcoming G20 Summit in India in September in person, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday (Aug 25).
Peskov said due to the “special military operation” in Ukraine, Putin won’t be able to attend the event in person. He said that the format of the Russian leader's participation would be determined later.
"No, the president has no such plans,” the official Tass news agency quoted the Kremlin spokesman as saying.
The last time the Russian president attended the G20 summit in person was in 2019 in Osaka, Japan.
During the summits in 2020 (Riyadh) and 2021 (Rome), both held during the Covid pandemic, Putin was present virtually.
He missed the 2022 Bali summit, where he was represented by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
Skipped BRICS Summit as well
He also had decided to skip the just-concluded first in-person BRICS summit inJohannesburg as theInternational Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for him in March over war crimes in the war on Ukraine.
South Africa, the BRICS summit host country, is an ICC signatory and was expected to help in Putin's arrest if he was present in the country.
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India, on the other hand, is not a member of the ICC, and has never signed its core treaty, the 'Rome Statute'. India has in the past hosted individuals that faced action from the ICC.
In 2015, ahead of then-Sudanese president Omar Hassan al-Bashir’s visit to New Delhi for the India-Africa Summit, the ICC had told India to arrest the African leader and hand him over to international authorities.
In 2009 and 2010, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Bashir, who was allegedly responsible for genocide and war crimes in the western Darfur region of Sudan.
Delegations to start arriving on Sept 8
Meanwhile, many head of the states are expected to visit India on September 8for the G20 Summit in the capital New Delhi. Among the leaders expected to visit are US President Joe Biden, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak among others.
The delegates will reach India on September 9. A gala dinner is planned in their honour on that day, and the attendees will visit Rajghat on September 10.
The representatives of nine "guest countries" —Bangladesh, Egypt, Mauritius, Netherlands, Nigeria, Oman, Singapore, Spain and the United Arab Emirates — have also been invited by India for the summit.
The summit will be held on September 9-10 at the newly-built Bharat Mandapam convention centre in Delhi's erstwhile Pragati Maidan. The 18th G20 Leaders’ Summit will be a culmination of all the G20 processes and meetings held throughout the year among ministers, senior officials and civil society.