G20 declaration hailed as diplomatic victory for New Delhi
India also insisted that the final declaration include all the provisions it wanted to see there, such as issues of economic development, climate change, the development of new technologies, and digital partnership
An Indian research fellow has lauded the adoption of the final declaration of the Group of Twenty summit in New Delhi as a great success for country’s diplomacy.
“Of course, this is a success for Indian diplomacy, which managed to persuade seemingly uncompromising opponents to agree on the text of the final declaration. A couple of weeks ago, this task seemed to be absolutely unattainable. Of course, I mean the topic of Ukraine,” said Nandan Unnikrishnan of the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation.
Apart from that, in his words, India insisted that the final declaration include all the provisions it wanted to see there, such as issues of economic development, climate change, the development of new technologies, and digital partnership.
“I feel that the West, as you can see, is not entirely satsified. Probably, Western countries wanted to see tougher wordings concerning Russia in connection with the Ukrainian crisis. But India managed to talk them into accepting this compromise,” the Indian expert said.
“Ukraine is not happy either as it probably expected that President Zelensky would be invited to the summit or would be able to address it via video link. But this did not happen. Maybe they expected more from the declaration in what concerns Ukraine, tougher language about Moscow’s actions, but the wording turned out to be even softer than at the previous G20 summit in Bali,” he added.
Commenting on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s initiative to hold another G20 summit in a virtual format in November to sum up the results of its work, Unnikrishnan said, “India tries to use its presidency at the G20 to promote its goals, positioning itself as a leader of the Global South.”
“India wants its voice to be louder and more assertive and such an initiative is a good way to achieve this,” he stressed.
