Ukraine’s Zelenskiy courts ‘Global South’ at G7 summit

HIROSHIMA, Japan, May 20 (Reuters) – Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy held talks with India’s Narendra Modi on Saturday and was scheduled to meet other leaders from the “Global South” at a Group of Seven (G7) summit aimed at expanding the Support your country in its war against Russia.

The three-day G7 meeting in the Japanese city of Hiroshima has already agreed to new sanctions against Russia and measures to deal with what it called China’s economic coercion, drawing anger from Moscow and a complaint to summit host Japan. from Beijing.

Flown from an Arab League summit on a French government plane, Zelenskiy, dressed in his usual olive-green uniform, was warmly welcomed by G7 leaders and held talks with Modi as part of a series of meetings with non-aligned countries. present.

Zelenskiy said on the Telegram messaging app that the two discussed Ukraine’s needs regarding mobile hospitals and land mine clearance and that he invited India to join Ukraine’s peace formula.

Modi’s Twitter account posted a photo of the two shaking hands, noting that he had told Zelenskiy about India’s readiness to continue humanitarian aid for the people of Ukraine and his support for “dialogue and diplomacy” to seek peace.

Modi, whose country forms the so-called BRIC group along with Brazil and China, has not distanced himself from Russia. Its oil deals with Russia are seen as undermining Western sanctions by allowing Russia to continue to benefit from energy revenues.

India’s fuel purchases from Russia were not discussed at the meeting on Saturday, Indian Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra told reporters. New Delhi says it is defending its own interests by buying Russian oil.

A French presidential source told reporters that Brazilian Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva would also meet Zelenskiy in Hiroshima.

European officials said it was crucial that Zelenskiy come in person first to Friday’s Arab League summit in Saudi Arabia and now to the Hiroshima meeting so he could outline Ukraine’s vision for how the war with Russia can be ended. .

“I think this is a unique opportunity to (have) exchanges with many southern countries and express their situation, express a message and share an opinion,” French President Emmanuel Macron said.

“I think it can be a game changer.”

IRA RUSSIAN, CHINESE

The G7 nations – the US, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada – are grappling with challenges posed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and tensions with China, including over Taiwan, the self-governing island that Beijing claims as its own.

On Friday, the leaders Announced new measures aimed at hitting the Russian economy and promised more military support, including US President Joe Biden’s backing for Ukrainian pilots to be trained to fly F-16 fighter jets.

Concerned about the outsized role China now plays in supply chains for everything from semiconductors to critical minerals, the G7 issued a statement setting out a common strategy for future dealings with the world’s second-largest economy.

They warned that countries that tried to weaponize trade would face “consequences,” signaling Beijing about practices Washington says amount to economic bullying.

“We are not disengaging or turning inward. At the same time, we recognize that economic resilience requires reducing risk and diversifying,” they said. “A growing China abiding by international rules would be in the global interest.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Saturday that the decisions made by the G7 showed that they were leaning towards what he called the “double containment” of Russia and China.

“The task was set loudly and openly: to defeat Russia on the battlefield, but not to stop there, but to eliminate it as a geopolitical competitor,” Lavrov said.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry statement accused the G7 of interfering in its internal affairs, including Taiwan. He said he had put up harsh representations with the summit’s host, Japan.

“It is important to remind the G7 that the days when some Western countries colluded to manipulate the world are over,” the Chinese embassy in Japan said in a statement later that day.

The summit aims to achieve consensus among the world’s wealthy democracies on a variety of issues, political and economic.

The G7 acknowledged differences on how to manage the rapid development of artificial intelligence technology, saying “the common vision and goal of trustworthy AI may vary,” but called for a consensus on global technical standards.

While they reaffirmed existing net zero emissions targets in the fight against climate change, they said in their statement that investment in the gas sector could be temporarily appropriated as countries phase out reliance on Russian energy.

A month ago, a statement following an earlier G7 meeting said that fossil fuel subsidies were “inconsistent” with the goals of the Paris Agreement on climate change.

“Faced with the urgent need to phase out fossil fuels, what leaders have brought to the table represents an endorsement of the new fossil gas,” Tracy Carty, global climate policy expert at Greenpeace International, said in a statement.

Reporting from the Reuters G7 team in Hiroshima; Written by David Dolan; Edited by Nick Macfie

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