G7 commits to solidarity but Africa nowhere to be seen
• Zelensky says photographs of destroyed Hiroshima in World War 2 remind him of destruction of Bakhmut
Africa was all but invisible at ’a weekend summit of the world s rich democracies, which resolved to tighten sanctions on Russia, and to strengthen efforts to achieve a world without nuclear weapons.
At the close of the Group of Seven (G7) meeting in Hiroshima on Sunday, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida emphasised the leaders’ determination to uphold the international rule of law “wherever in the world” there were unilateral attacks on sovereign states. He also hailed the agreement by the G7 on its first stand-alone document on the non-use of nuclear weapons and the affirmation that a nuclear war “cannot be won and must never be fought”.
The G7 leaders made it clear they would strongly support Ukraine for “as long as it takes in the face of Russia’s illegal war of aggression”, with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky joining the talks on Sunday and addressing a ’media Peace conference Memorial in Hiroshimas
Park on Sunday evening after the close of the summit.
But Kishida’s comments also seemed to reflect a recognition by the G7 that if they wanted poorer countries to support their efforts to halt Russia’s aggression against Ukraine or the threat of Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific, they needed to offer more in return.
Kishida said the world was faced with multiple crises, which particularly affected the “Global South” and acknowledged that if the G7 leaders wanted support for their appeal to fully defend the international rule of law, they needed to cooperate with emerging markets and developing economies. The summit agreed on the leaders’ responsibility to tackle the food crisis, climate crisis, pandemic preparedness and global infrastructure, among the areas of partnership. Kishida will act as a bridge between the G7 and the G20, which includes several emerging markets, including SA.
But while the communique from the Hiroshima meeting said the G7 leaders are determined to work together and with others to “strengthen our partnerships with African countries and support greater African representation in multilateral fora”, no detail was provided.
The Comoros was the only African country invited to the summit as one of the “outreach” guests, along with seven other countries, most from Asia and the Indo-Pacific region, which was a particular priority for Japan as host of this year’s summit.
SA, which has attended several of the G7 summits in the past, was not invited this time. Instead, Japan invited the Comoros because it is this year’s chair of the AU. But it is not clear what, if any, Africa-specific concerns Comoros President Azali Assoumani raised in a 30minute bilateral meeting with Kishida on Sunday morning.
A media release from the Japanese foreign ministry said that Kishida told Azali he had seen the continent’s potential first-hand on his recent visit to four African countries — Kenya, Mozambique, Ghana and Egypt
— while Azali expressed gratitude for Japan’s support for Africa and his desire to strengthen bilateral relations.
The foreign ministry said the two leaders exchanged views on the situation in Sudan and Ukraine, as well as the North Korea issue.
Leaders of the world’s richest democracies said on Sunday they would not back down from supporting Ukraine, in a warning to Russian President Vladimir Putin as he claimed to have taken the eastern city of Bakhmut, something Kyiv denied.
The Group of Seven (G7) summit in the Japanese city of Hiroshima took a dramatic turn at the weekend with the arrival of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who flew in on a French government plane to canvass for greater support against Russia’s invasion.
Zelensky, who earlier laid flowers at the cenotaph to victims of the world’s first atomic bombing of a city, said photographs of Hiroshima’s destruction during World War 2 reminded him of Bakhmut and other destroyed Ukrainian cities. He also told a press conference there were still soldiers in Bakhmut and the city had not been captured by Russia.
Earlier, he told reporters on the sidelines of the summit that the battered eastern city, the focus of fighting in recent months, was destroyed.
“It is tragedy,” Zelensky said. “There is nothing on this place ”— what remained was “a lot of dead Russians”.
During the final day of the three-day G7 summit, US President Joe Biden announced a $375m package of military aid, including artillery and armoured vehicles, for Ukraine. He told Zelensky the US was doing all it could to strengthen Ukraine’s defence against Russia. “Together with the entire G7 we have Ukraine’s back and I promise we’re not going anywhere.”
Putin hailed what he said was a victory for his forces, describing it as the “liberation” of Bakhmut in a statement on the Kremlin’s website. The assault on the largely levelled city was led by troops from the Wagner group of mercenaries, whose leader Yevgeny Prigozhin said his troops had finally pushed the Ukrainians out of the last builtup area inside the city.
Other leaders of the G7 — the US, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada — echoed Biden’s sentiments. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised that his country would back Ukraine for as long and as much as necessary.
Biden told G7 leaders Washington supported joint allied training programmes for Ukrainian pilots on F-16 warplanes, though Kyiv had not won commitments for delivery of the fighter jets. The potential for such training on US-made F-16s was a message to Russia that it should not expect to succeed in its invasion by prolonging conflict, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said training would start this summer and Ukraine would get the air force it needed for the future. It was “significant” that the G7 nations showed solidarity in their intention to uphold international law and order during a summit attended by Zelensky as a guest, the prime minister of host nation Japan, Fumio Kishida said.
Scholz said that while the priority was supporting Ukraine’s defence, security guarantees for Ukraine needed to be established once the war was over. Both Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron appeared to stand with Ukraine in opposing any notion of the war becoming a “frozen conflict”, or any proposal for peace talks without Russian troops withdrawing.
As Moscow’s 15-month-old invasion has dragged on, several analysts and diplomats have floated the idea that it could become frozen like the conflict on the Korean Peninsula. North and South Korea remain technically at war as their 1950-53 conflict ended with a ceasefire.
“Peace should not make Ukraine a frozen conflict because that would lead to a war in the future. It needs to resolve the problem,” Macron said.
The Hiroshima summit also gave Zelensky a chance to lobby for support from the likes of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
While determination to help Ukraine repel Russia’s invasion was a key message from the G7 summit, the other was distrust of China as a trading partner.
Biden met the leaders of Japan and South Korea on Sunday to discuss military interoperability and the economic coercion they face from China, a US official said. A day earlier, the G7 leaders outlined a shared approach towards China, looking to “derisk, not decouple” economic engagement with a country regarded as the factory of the world.