Jaishankar said that both China and Russia and their respective positions will be reflected by the representatives of the two countries who are present at the G20 Summit. "I think everybody is coming with a great deal of seriousness," he added.
Days after Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping announced their decision to skip the upcoming G20 Summit in New Delhi, the External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said, “It has nothing to do with India, whatever decision they make, they know best.”
In an interview to news agency ANI, Jaishankar said that both China and Russia and their respective positions will be reflected by the representatives of the two countries who are present at the G20 Summit.
“…I think, at different points of time in G20, there have been some presidents or prime ministers who, for whatever reason, have chosen not to come themselves. But that country and its position is reflected by whoever is the representative on that occasion… I think everybody is coming with a great deal of seriousness…,” the EAM said.
Xi and Putin will not be attending the G20 summit in New Delhi, slated to be held on September 9 and 10. While the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced that Chinese Premier Li Qiang will attend the summit, Putin told Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a telephonic conversation last week that Russia would be represented by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. While expressing an understanding for Russia’s decision, Modi thanked Putin for Russia’s consistent support to all the initiatives under India’s G20 presidency, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) had said.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar met Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Jakarta on Wednesday amid growing pessimism about a consensus on the outcome document to be adopted by the G20 at its summit in New Delhi this weekend – particularly due to differences over the war in Ukraine. Lavrov will lead the delegation from Moscow to the G20 summit in New Delhi as Russian President Vladimir Putin will give the annual meeting of the leaders a miss. Jaishankar, however, couldn’t wait for Lavrov to arrive in New Delhi and met him on the sideline of the East Asia Summit in Jakarta, apparently to seek his intervention to end the impasse in the negotiation over the ‘Delhi Declaration’, proposed to be adopted by the G20 leaders on Sunday.
