Will G20 Meeting In South Africa Be Different Than 2022 Indonesia, 2023 India, And 2024 Brazil? Will Russia Minister Lavrov Remain Ostracized? Opportunity To Influence President Trump?
Will G20 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting Today And Tomorrow In Johannesburg, South Africa, Be Different Than In Indonesia In 2022, India In 2023, And Brazil In 2024?
On 20 February 2025 and 21 February 2025, the government of the Republic of South Africa will host the first Foreign Ministers’ meeting during the country’s G20 Presidency. The gathering is in Nasrec, Johannesburg, under the theme, Solidarity, Equality, Sustainability.
Group of 20 (G20): Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Republic of Korea, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkiye, United Kingdom, United States.
From 24 February 2022, the Biden-Harris Administration (2021-2025) did not publicly engage with representatives of the government of the Russian Federation during G20 gatherings in Indonesia (2022), India (2023), or Brazil (2024).
· On 24 February 2022, the armed forces of the Russian Federation invaded and further invaded the territory of Ukraine in what President Putin defined as a Special Military Operation [SMO] then on 22 December 2022 he redefined as a war. The initial invasion of Ukraine by the armed forces of the Russian Federation was in part from the territory of Belarus.
· The war between the Russian Federation and Ukraine did not commence on 24 February 2022. The roots began their trajectories on 20 February 2014 when the armed forces of the Russian Federation invaded the Crimean Peninsula and the area known as the Donbas Region (Donetsk Oblast and Luhansk Oblast).
Antony Blinken, United States Secretary of State (2021-2025) purposely and visibly avoided public engagement with Sergey Lavrov, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation.
Less than one month into his second non-consecutive term, Donald Trump, President of the United States (2025-2029), directed Marco Rubio, United States Secretary of State, to travel to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for a publicly-disclosed meeting with Minister Lavrov.
While Secretary Rubio will not be in South Africa for reasons not related to Minister Lavrov, will other ministers use the two-day opportunity to engage with Minister Lavrov?
Particularly, those ministers whose countries are among the twenty-seven members of the Brussels, Belgium-based European Union (EU) and among the thirty-two members of the Brussels, Belgium-based North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
European Union (EU): Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden.
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO): United States, United Kingdom, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Albania, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Croatia, Czech Republic, Poland, Estonia, Romania, Germany, Slovakia, Greece, Slovenia, Hungary, Spain, Turkiye, Latvia, and North Macedonia, Sweden.
The EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Vice President of the European Commission, Kaja Kallas, will participate in the first G20 Foreign Ministers’ meeting.
Leadership within the European Commission and NATO have complained about their exclusion from preparation for and attendance at the 18 February 2025 meeting in Saudi Arabia.
Today and tomorrow, the representative of the EU, representatives from individual EU-members, and representatives from individual NATO members will have opportunities to engage directly with Minister Lavrov.
They should robustly embrace that opportunity.