Let’s keep G20 non-political, India suggests ahead of meet

INTERNATIONAL DESK: India on Thursday said that the world was facing several challenges, including dealing with climate change, poverty and development, and sought the support of G20 members to keep the grouping “non-political.” India’s sherpa Amitabh Kant said Delhi is working with all members to ensure challenges around global debt and recession, in several parts of the world, are addressed, and “one issue can’t hold back other things”, in what was seen as a reference to the Ukraine war.

Sherpas from G20 nations are meeting in Kumarakom for the second meet of the key representative of world leaders and will discuss ways to deal with challenges. The sherpas will begin discussions on drafting the communique for the leaders’ summit in September.

India on Thursday said that the world was facing several challenges – including dealing with climate change, poverty and development – and sought the support of G20 members to keep the grouping “non-political”.

India’s sherpa Amitabh Kant said New Delhi is working with all members to ensure that challenges around global debt and recession, in several parts of the world, are addressed, and “one issue can’t hold back other things”, in what was seen as a reference to the Russia-Ukraine war.

Sherpas from G20 countries are meeting in the backwaters of Kumarakom for the second meeting of the key representative of world leaders and will discuss ways to deal with the challenges. “Kumarakom will provide peace and serenity to all the delegates. Kumarakom backwaters will enable us in the coming days to take the challenges of the world forward,” Kant told a news conference.

With several meetings out of the way, the sherpas will begin discussions on drafting the communique for the leader’s summit in September. Officials said unlike earlier, in India, all G20 countries are part of the deliberations, indicating a willingness to engage.

The Russia-Ukraine war has emerged as a sticking point for the developed world, led by the G7, while India has maintained that the G20 should remain an economic and development forum. India’s stand found support from the Troika (which includes Indonesia and Brazil with South Africa as a special invitee). Sources said all emerging countries have said that issues such as global debt overhang, slowing global growth, inflation and climate action are key for them and need to be deliberated at the forum extensively for possible resolution.

During the day, Kant also held wide ranging discussion with his Russian counterpart as well as South Africa.
“We discussed everything under the sun with Russia. We are very positive and optimistic,” said Kant. He said there was strong support for the development issues at the bilaterals that he had with sherpas of several countries, including Italy. (TOI)