Ukraine’s Zelenskiy courts ‘World South’ at G7 summit By Reuters

By John Irish and Sakura Murakami

HIROSHIMA, Japan (Reuters) -Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy held talks with India’s Narendra Modi on Saturday and was resulting from meet different “World South” leaders at a Group of Seven (G7) summit aimed toward broadening assist for his nation in its warfare in opposition to Russia.

The three-day G7 assembly within the Japanese metropolis of Hiroshima has already agreed new sanctions on Russia and measures to face as much as what it referred to as China’s financial coercion, drawing the ire of Moscow and a criticism to the summit host Japan from Beijing.

Flown in from an Arab League summit on a French authorities jet, Zelenskiy, carrying his customary olive inexperienced fatigues, was warmly greeted by G7 leaders and held talks with Modi as a part of a sequence of conferences with non-aligned international locations in attendance.

Zelenskiy mentioned on the Telegram message app that the 2 mentioned Ukraine’s wants regarding cellular hospitals and the elimination of land mines and that he had invited India to hitch Ukraine’s peace system.

Modi’s Twitter account posted a photograph of the 2 shaking arms, noting he had informed Zelenskiy of India’s readiness to proceed humanitarian assist for the folks of Ukraine and its backing for “dialogue and diplomacy” to hunt peace.

Modi, whose nation types the so-called BRIC group alongside Brazil and China, has not distanced itself Russia. Its oil offers with Russia are seen as undermining Western sanctions by permitting Russia to proceed benefiting from power revenues.

India’s gasoline purchases from Russia weren’t mentioned in Saturday’s assembly, India’s international secretary, Vinay Kwatra, informed reporters. New Delhi says it’s defending its personal pursuits in shopping for Russian oil.

A French presidential supply informed reporters Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva would additionally meet Zelenskiy in Hiroshima.

European officers mentioned it was essential that Zelenskiy got here in particular person first to Friday’s Arab League summit in Saudi Arabia and now to the Hiroshima gathering in order that he may define Ukraine’s view of how the warfare with Russia will be ended.

“I feel it is a distinctive alternative to (have) exchanges with lots of international locations from the south and categorical your scenario, categorical a message and share a view,” French President Emmanuel Macron mentioned.

“I do imagine it may be a game-changer.”

RUSSIAN, CHINESE IRE

G7 nations – the U.S., Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada – are grappling with the challenges posed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and tensions with China, together with over Taiwan, the self-ruled island Beijing claims as its personal.

On Friday, the leaders introduced new measures aimed toward hitting the Russian economic system and promised additional navy assist, together with backing by U.S. President Joe Biden for Ukrainian pilots to be skilled to fly F-16 fighter jets.

Fearful by the outsized function China now performs in provide chains for all the pieces from semiconductors to essential minerals, the G7 issued a communique that set out a typical technique in the direction of future dealings with the world’s second-largest economic system.

They warned that international locations making an attempt to make use of commerce as a weapon would face “penalties”, in a sign to Beijing over practices Washington says quantity to financial bullying.

“We’re not decoupling or turning inwards. On the similar time, we recognise that financial resilience requires de-risking and diversifying,” they mentioned. “A rising China that performs by worldwide guidelines can be of world curiosity.”

Russian International Minister Sergei Lavrov mentioned on Saturday that the selections taken by the G7 confirmed they had been bent on what he referred to as the “double containment” of Russia and China.

“The duty was set loudly and brazenly – to defeat Russia on the battlefield, however to not cease there, however to remove it as a geopolitical competitor,” Lavrov mentioned.

A Chinese language international ministry assertion accused the G7 of interfering in its inner affairs, together with Taiwan. It mentioned it had lodged stern representations with summit host Japan.

“You will need to remind the G7 that the times when a number of Western international locations colluded to control the world are over,” China’s embassy in Japan mentioned in an announcement later within the day.

The summit is meant to win consensus among the many world’s wealthy democracies on a spread of points, political and financial.

The G7 acknowledged variations on find out how to handle the speedy improvement of synthetic intelligence expertise, saying that “the widespread imaginative and prescient and aim of reliable AI might differ” however calling for consensus on world technical requirements.

Whereas they reaffirmed present net-zero emissions targets within the struggle in opposition to local weather change, they mentioned of their communique that funding within the fuel sector could possibly be quickly applicable as international locations section out reliance on Russian power.

A month in the past, a communique after a earlier G7 assembly famous that fossil gasoline subsidies had been “inconsistent” with the targets of the Paris Settlement on local weather change.

“Confronted with the pressing have to section out fossil fuels, what leaders have delivered to the desk represents an endorsement of latest fossil fuel,” Tracy Carty, World Local weather Politics Knowledgeable at Greenpeace Worldwide, mentioned in an announcement.