South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said that major world powers lack consensus on how to respond to issues of global significance.
Ramaphosa said this at the opening of the Group of 20 foreign ministers’ meeting in Johannesburg on Thursday.
“Geopolitical tensions and rising intolerance, conflict and war, climate change, pandemics and food insecurity do threaten an already fragile global coexistence,” Ramaphosa told the two-day meeting.
He said these challenges were interconnected and required inclusive and coordinated responses by various forums, including the G20.
The meeting, first of its kind chaired by South Africa, is being held without the presence of U.S Secretary of State, Marco Rubio.
Rubio declined an invitation on the grounds that South Africa has passed a land reform bill that the United States disagrees with.
He has also been critical of South Africa’s policies towards Israel, justifying his absence ahead of the meeting, the U.S. secretary of state posted on X that his job was not to “coddle anti-Americanism.”
A U.S embassy official will attend instead.
The Middle East conflict and Russia’s war in Ukraine are at the top of the meeting’s agenda.
However, emerging markets such as South Africa, Brazil and India want to talk primarily about topics such as the restructuring of global institutions, adaptation to climate change and fairer economic development.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov attended the two-day meeting, and Foreign Minister Wang Yi was expected from China.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock is being represented by Katja Keul, secretary of state in the German Foreign Office, who appealed for more international cooperation “in this extremely tense international situation.”
The G20 includes 19 countries, the European Union and the African Union.
The group represents about 80 per cent of the world’s population and more than 85per cent of global economic power. (dpa/NAN)
