Gaza, Ukraine loom over G20 ministers’ meeting

Foreign ministers from the Group of 20 (G20) were to open a two-day meeting in Brazil on Wednesday, with the outlook bleak for progress on a thorny agenda of conflicts and crises, from the wars in Gaza and Ukraine to growing polarization.

United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov are both expected in the southeastern city of Rio de Janeiro for the first high-level G20 meeting of the year, though not their Chinese counterpart Wang Yi.

In a world torn by conflicts and divisions, Brazil, which took over the rotating G20 presidency from India in December, has voiced hopes for what Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva calls “the forum with the greatest capacity to positively influence the international agenda.”

But Lula’s bid to make the G20 a space for finding common ground suffered on Sunday when the veteran leftist ignited a diplomatic firestorm by accusing Israel of “genocide,” comparing its military campaign in the Gaza Strip to the Holocaust.

The comments drew outrage in Israel, which declared him “persona non grata,” and could overshadow any bid to deescalate the conflict via the G20.

“If Lula imagined he was going to propose peace resolutions on Israel or Ukraine, that just got swept off the table,” international relations specialist Igor Lucena told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

More than four months after the Gaza war started with Hamas’ unprecedented October 7 attacks on southern Israel, which has vowed to wipe out the Islamist group in retaliation, there is little sign of progress toward peace.

A new UN Security Council resolution on a ceasefire was vetoed on Tuesday by the US, which said the text would endanger ongoing negotiations, including on the release of Hamas-held hostages.

The outlook is similarly downbeat on Russia’s war in Ukraine, which also has G20 members divided.

Despite a push from Western countries for the group to condemn President Vladimir Putin’s invasion, the G20’s last summit, held in India’s capital New Delhi in September, ended with a watereddown statement that denounced the use of force but did not explicitly name Russia, which maintains friendly ties with fellow members like India and Brazil.

Underlining the G20 stalemate, the top economies making up the Group of Seven — Ukrainian allies Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom and the US — will hold its own virtual meeting on the war on Saturday, the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion.

‘Putting out fires’

Held at a marina on the Rio waterfront, the G20 meeting will open with a session on “addressing international tensions.”

The ministers will discuss global governance reform on Thursday — a favorite issue for Brazil, which wants a greater voice for the Global South at institutions like the United Nations, International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

“The number and gravity of conflicts has returned to the level of the Cold War. That brings new urgency to the issue,” said Mauricio Lyrio, Brazil’s top diplomat for G20 political negotiations.

“We need to adapt the international system to prevent new conflicts,” he told journalists on Tuesday. “Now, we’re just putting out fires.”

Brazil also wants to use its G20 presidency to push the fights against poverty and climate change.

There will also be space for bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the gathering, though a Blinken-Lavrov encounter looks unlikely, given the simmering tension over Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s death in prison last Friday.

Blinken and Lavrov last met in person at a G20 gathering in India in March 2023.

Founded in 1999, the G20 brings together most of the world’s biggest economies.

Originally an economic forum, it has grown increasingly involved in international politics. But the prospects for major advances via the group are dim in a year when elections will be held in some 50 countries, including key G20 members US and Russia, said Lucena.

“Reaching big agreements will be difficult,” he said. “It’s not a favorable environment for resolving conflicts. On the contrary.”