G20 Summit Ukraine Consensus: 'Difficult, but India carried it extremely well,' says South Africa FM Naledi Pandor

South Africa’s Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Grace Naledi Pandor, underscored the challenge of squaring off differences on the war in Ukraine and commended India for bringing a consensus on the question at the G20 Summit in Delhi in an interview with FirstPost.

“I think it has been really difficult but India carried it extremely well, credit to the (India’s G20) Sherpa (Amitabh Kanth), credit to the foreign minister (, and credit to his excellency the PM (Narendra Modi),” the African minister said.

Consensus on Ukraine War

The war in Ukraine has been a flashpoint for the G20 since the last year. The conflict has hijacked the grouping and set deep divides. She believed that this, especially given Ukraine is not even a G20 member, takes the focus away from the question of development. She also argued that if Ukraine was to be invited then why not all those African countries that face conflicts?

“Ukraine isn’t a member of G20 and its not been the practice to invite external countries to come to the G20 and almost make a submission. We are very pleased that the AU has become a permanent part, and again we credit and thank India for that decision,

“I don’t think that it would be appropriate to have a situation where one country which has a conflict believes it should be invited. Should we be inviting Mozambique, which has had terrorist attacks, Should we be inviting Mali, which has had a coup, or Burkina Faso? If we don’t invite them then why is it because they are African so the conflict they experience doesn’t matter?” she asked.

Pandor expressed gratitude to Sherpa Amitabh Kanth for making sure the agenda wasn’t hijacked by Ukraine.

“Credit must go to the Sherpa of India who played a very important role”

India’s permanent seat on UNSC

When asked about India still not having a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, and if China was behind the delay, she said that it was not the case. Instead, other countries that are not permanent members piggyback developing countries to create roadblocks.

“I don’t think there’s an objection from China, We discussed this matter and it’s in our BRICS declaration that countries such as India and Brazil and African countries such as South Africa should have representation. China is a part of the BRICS declaration, so there’s been no objection in our meetings to India having a presence on the security council.”

“The roadblock is, when you introduce the subject of reform, others who are not part of the permanent presence on the security council assert their interest, so they piggyback on the developing countries, so you’d have a Germany, a Japan, it muddy the water.”

France in BRICS

On the question of France being denied association with BRICS, she said that there was no place for the country and the group couldn’t get to a consensus on the issue.

“We didn’t think that there was really a place for him in our deliberations and we had a great deal of business to get through. The interest came rather late and the members fortunately of BRICS, Our practice is we decide matters on consensus. So the chair President Ramaphosa consulted all his colleagues and there wasn’t any consensus that all five wished to have the President of France.”

China’s debt-trap in Africa

Africa owes $73 billion in debt to China, making some argue that the continent is falling into a debt trap to China. However, she argued that this was not the case and it was just the media trying to create a bad image for China.

“I think there’s been a popular attempt in the public media to create an impression that China owns the continent and I think it’s really wrong. Because there are many people to whom money is owed by many African countries, many of them are in debt to the IMF, to the other international development finance institutions, but because there is this intention to present China as some form of monster eating up the African continent.”