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Yudhoyono suggests Biden meet Putin, Xi at G20 summit for world peace
Former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, an avid internationalist, has called on the leaders of the United States, Russia and China to meet at the G20 Bali Summit in November for the good of the world.
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Former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono talks to reporters at his home in Cikeas, West Java, in this file photo taken in 2019. (kompas.com/Kristian Erdianto)
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mid rising geopolitical tensions between major powers China, Russia and the United States, former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono suggested that it would be better for the world if US President Joe Biden met with Russian President Vladimir Putin as well as Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Group of 20 Bali Summit in November to prevent “a real possibility of World War III”.
Indonesia’s first directly elected president, also known by his initials SBY, made the remarks in his opening speech at a roundtable discussion held on Thursday by The Yudhoyono Institute and the National University of Malaysia at the Fairmont Jakarta hotel. Titled “Geopolitics and International Security, Global Economy and Climate Change Crisis”, the event was attended by foreign policy experts from Indonesia and Malaysia.
“In my personal view, the world will very much welcome a substantive bilateral meeting between President Biden and President Putin at the G20 Summit. It would be even better if President Biden could also meet with President Xi Jinping, so that both Europe and East Asia can breathe a sigh of relief,” Yudhoyono said.
President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo told Bloomberg during an interview in August that both Putin and Xi were planning to attend the G20 Summit in Bali.
However, the Kremlin told Reuters that Putin had yet to confirm his attendance, while a separate report quoted the Indonesian envoy to the United Arab Emirates as saying that both Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had confirmed they would attend the Bali summit.
Yudhoyono noted during the discussion that today’s global community was highly divided, even when compared to the height of the Cold War in 1982. While he was emphatic that World War III would never have happened then, “I have to say that there is a real possibility of World War III now if no effort is taken to prevent it from happening,” he said.
The Democratic Party founder also noted that the ongoing war in Ukraine was already turning into a proxy war between the West and Russia. With rising prices, climate change and a looming global recession, he said the world was on the verge of a crisis even worse than in 2008, which took the world coming together at the inaugural G20 Summit to overcome.
