No family picture of foreign ministers in G20 ?

Foreign Ministers attending a G20 meeting in Delhi will not gather for a "family photo" over the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war and sharp differences emerging between the G7 members unwilling to share a frame with their Russian counterpart.
 
 
The G7 countries comprise the US, the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan. Deep divisions between the United States-led Western countries and the Russia-China combine upended India’s attempt to forge consensus at the G20 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting.

 
The Foreign Ministers meeting is one of the most significant G20 meetings. The G20 foreign ministers meeting is taking place days after a gathering of finance ministers and the Central Bank Governors of the G20 member countries in Bengaluru failed to come out with a joint communique over sharp differences between the Western powers and Russia-China combine over the Ukraine conflict.

 
Even last year, the G20 meeting for foreign ministers at Bali in Indonesia, took place just five months after the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. There had been a strict boycott by western countries, with western delegations walking out when the Russian foreign minister was due to speak. There had been no ‘family photo’ – a customary photo-op of the principal participants at a high-level diplomatic meeting.

 
We should not allow issues that we cannot resolve together to come in the way of those we can,” said PM Modi in a reference to the divide over the Ukraine war, adding that he hoped that their meeting “in the land of Gandhi and the Buddha” would inspire the G20 delegates to “focus not on what divides us, but on what unites us”.

 
Sources said, while the Foreign Ministers’ Meeting does not mandate a joint statement, the fact that Indian negotiators failed to convince their Russian and Chinese counterparts to sign on to the language of last year’s joint communique in Bali is a setback, and all it seems New Delhi will have to do some heavy diplomatic lifting in the next few months, in order to have a joint communique at the G20 leaders summit in September.

 
Agreeing with Mr. Jaishankar, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the lack of a joint communique at the Foreign Ministers’ Meeting or going forward at the G20 leaders summit was not an “issue” if there was consensus between most countries.