US presence nominal, no Russia consensus at G20

THE United States' withdrawal and Russia's inability to secure European consensus led the G20 Foreign Ministers to acknowledge growing geopolitical divisions during their meeting in South Africa, which concluded in Johannesburg on Thursday but without the customary group photograph.

- JAYANTH JACOB @ New Delhi

The summary of the chair by South African minister Ronald O Lamola "recognised the widening geopolitical divisions which have contributed to fostering a climate of distrust, thus threatening to unravel progress we have made to address pressing global challenges such as poverty, climate change, pandemics, nuclear proliferation and armed conflict."

To begin with, the US was presented at the meeting by Chargé d' Affaires for the US Mission to South Africa Dana Brown. Then European leaders and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov went after each other.