BALI, Indonesia — World leaders at the Group of 20 summit meeting struggled to find common ground on the war in Ukraine in their closing statement on Wednesday, underscoring the gulf between the West and other countries on Russia’s actions.
The summit, held on the Indonesian island of Bali, did not result in a customary joint communiqué, but the officials were able to agree on a “leaders’ declaration.” That statement said that “most members strongly condemned the war in Ukraine,” but that “there were other views and different assessments of the situation and sanctions.”
Major powers like India and China have been unwilling to join the Western-led sanctions against Moscow, and Indonesia has not explicitly condemned Russia over the invasion.
Indonesia’s president, Joko Widodo, the chair of this year’s summit, described the paragraph on the war as the most “highly debated.”
“Until midnight we talked about this, and finally the Bali declaration was reached through consensus,” he told reporters.
Mr. Joko said that a representative from Russia had been present throughout, although President Vladimir V. Putin did not attend and Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, left Bali on Tuesday, before the end of the two-day summit. Asked whether Mr. Lavrov’s departure had been scheduled in advance, a spokesman for Indonesia’s foreign ministry, Teuku Faizasyah, said in a text message: “It is my understanding.”
I Wayan Koster, the governor of Bali, said that Mr. Lavrov had gone to the hospital for a check on Monday and that he was healthy. A spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry later denied a news report that Mr. Lavrov had been hospitalized, calling it the “aerobatics of fake news.”
Little was expected from this year’s G20 summit, and Mr. Joko had described it as perhaps the “most difficult” one yet, given the broader political climate. Before the meeting on Monday between President Biden and Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, tensions between the United States and China were at their highest in years. There was also an overriding worry among many attendees that the agenda could be overtaken by the war in Ukraine.
But Mr. Joko said the summit had resulted in concrete and tangible results, including the establishment of a $1.5 billion pandemic fund and an $81.6 billion sustainability trust under the International Monetary Fund to help countries in crisis.
In his opening remarks to world leaders at the closing session, Mr. Joko said: “Stop the war. I repeat, stop the war.” He added: “As leaders, we all have the responsibility to ensure a conducive global situation for the future of the world.”
Muktita Suhartono contributed reporting.
Sui-Lee Wee
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