Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar (usually known by simply his first initial as “S Jaishankar”) said on Thursday that the G20 summit to be hosted in New Delhi this September will be for “members” only.
Jaishankar was responding to a question about whether Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would be invited to attend or not.
“In our view, G20 participation is for members of G20, and for the countries and organizations who we have invited to the G20, and that list we had declared as soon as we assumed the presidency of the G20,” Jaishankar said at a press conference on Thursday.
“We didn’t let the Ukraine issue affect our ties with Russia,” he said, stressing that leaders in both Moscow and New Delhi “understand the importance of steady India-Russia relations for stability in Eurasia.”
India became president of the Group of 20 nations in December 2022, an achievement the Indian government takes a great deal of pride in. India will host the G20 Leaders’ Summit in New Delhi for the first time in September.
As Jaishankar pointed out, India released a list of guests it planned to invite to the Leaders’ Summit soon after assuming the presidency, including a who’s-who of international organizations such as the United Nations and World Trade Organization, plus several non-member states, but Zelensky was not on that list. Ukraine is not a member of the G20.
According to Jaishankar, the guest list and agenda for the September meeting were hammered out with some difficulty during the closing days of the previous G20 presidency, held by Indonesia.
“I remember last year there were a lot of challenges in getting the final G20 declaration done, and I in fact commended even then the Indonesian presidency for making that big effort and getting the Bali declaration,” he said, adding that India provided considerable assistance as a member of the “Troika,” meaning the previous and future G20 presidents working closely with the current holder of the office.
“There are differences of opinion even about what was agreed to in Bali last year. So, how do we handle it? It’s very hard for me. Diplomats are still working on it,” he said, recalling a trip to Moscow last September to negotiate the Bali declaration with his Russian counterparts.
Russia is a member of the G20 and India has attempted to maintain its longstanding good relations with Moscow and the Western world at the same time, despite international outrage over Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine. Further complicating India’s balancing act is that global market, food, and fuel disruptions caused by Russia’s war are expected to be major topics at the New Delhi G20 summit.
Zelensky delivered a video address to the G20 summit in Bali last November, which Russian leader Vladimir Putin did not attend, sending Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in his place. Zelensky pointedly addressed the attendees as the “G19” to exclude Moscow, and told them “now is the time when the Russian destructive war must and can be stopped.”
The declaration from the Bali summit stated that “today’s era must not be of war,” echoing a remark Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made to Putin two months earlier, and while it quoted some other international declarations highly critical of the Russian invasion, it avoided condemning Russia directly.
Western members of the G20 unsuccessfully pushed for a more forthright condemnation of Russian aggression. Russia claimed the Ukraine conflict was actually “unleashed” by the West and insisted the Bali summit should not be “politicized” by denouncing the war.
The most strongly-worded passage in the Bali declaration said “the threat or use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible,” an oblique reference to Putin and other Russian officials musing that it might not be.
Modi met with Zelensky at the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan, in May, and India agreed to provide humanitarian assistance to the Ukrainians, including medicine and assistance with repairing damaged infrastructure.
On the other hand, India is still Russia’s biggest customer for weapons and one of the largest buyers of Russian oil. India was therefore much less likely to invite Zelensky to a G20 summit than Indonesia was, even though the Ukrainians specifically asked for an invitation in April.
“Presidency of the G20 brings additional responsibility to India,” said Ukrainian First Deputy Foreign Minister Emine Dzhaparova while in New Delhi. “My message during the visit is: let us consider participation of the Ukrainian officials at the G20 summit to be held in India.”
“During the September G20 summit, my president will also be happy to speak up on behalf of the Ukrainian people,” she said.