A meeting of G20 finance ministers in Bengaluru has ended in a row after Russia and China refused to agree on a statement condemning Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and rejecting the use of nuclear weapons.
The meeting broke up on Saturday without agreement on a joint communique from member finance ministers and central bank governors.
But India, which holds the G20 presidency, issued a “chairman’s summary and outcome document”. It was supported by delegations from 17 of the group’s 20 members, which include the world’s largest developed and developing economies; Russia and China did not approve.
The document reiterated the position taken by G20 leaders at last year’s summit in Bali, when they denounced “in the strongest terms” Russia’s war in Ukraine and demanded Russia’s “complete and unconditional” withdrawal from Ukrainian territory.
The document also reiterated the Bali Summit declaration that “the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is unacceptable”.
Ajay Seth of India’s finance ministry said the Russian and Chinese delegations, which did not attend the meeting in Bengaluru, said the war and its consequences were beyond the mandate of the finance minister and central bank governor.
Another member “felt that the war had implications for the global economy, so it was right to have that paragraph”, he said.
The dispute over the communique highlighted tensions within the G20 over members’ positions on the war.
The summary document said that “most” members other than Russia and China condemned the war in Ukraine, which it said had caused “enormous human suffering and exacerbated the existing strain on the global economy”.
Nirmala Sitharaman, India’s finance minister, declined to say whether India was among the members that condemned the war. On Thursday, India abstained from the UN General Assembly vote condemning the war, along with China. Russia voted against the UN resolution.
Sitharaman said India has signed the G20 leaders’ declaration in Bali, from the language of the summary document on Saturday.
German Finance Minister Christian Lindner said the failure to reach an agreement on the communique was “regrettable”. “But for me it is more important that everyone else adheres to a clear position on international law, multilateralism and the end of war,” Lindner said.
“It became difficult for the G20 to participate in the construction of discussions because of Russia’s entry into Ukraine, which is an action that shakes the foundations of the global order,” Japanese finance minister Shunichi Suzuki told reporters in comments reported by Reuters.
Bruno Le Maire, the French Finance Minister, said on Friday that France would not sign a communique that involved withdrawing from the Bali declaration.
Additional reporting by Reuters