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Italy's Draghi: Jokowi says Putin won't attend G20 Bali summit

Indonesia holds the rotating presidency of the G20 this year and Western countries have pressured Jokowi to exclude Russia's president from the summit, after announcing in April he had been invited.

Agencies (The Jakarta Post)
Elmau Castle, Germany
Thu, June 30, 2022

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Italy's Draghi: Jokowi says Putin won't attend G20 Bali summit
G20 Indonesia 2022

Italy's Mario Draghi said on Tuesday that Group of 20 (G20) chairman President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, has ruled out Vladimir Putin's attendance at the body's November summit – a statement the Kremlin quickly rejected.

Indonesia holds the rotating presidency of the G20 this year and Western countries have pressured Jokowi to exclude Russia's president from the summit, after announcing in April he had been invited.

"President [Jokowi] rules it out," Draghi told reporters at the end of the two-day G7 summit in Germany, to which Jokowi was invited as a guest, AFP reported. "He was categorical, he [Putin] will not come. What may happen is a remote participation, we'll see," Draghi added.

The Kremlin reacted swiftly, with advisor Yuri Ushakov saying: "Draghi does not decide this."

"We have received the invitation and we have responded positively," Ushakov said, according to Russia's Interfax news agency.

"He [Draghi] has surely forgotten that he is no longer the host" of the G20, as he was last year, Ushakov added.

On Monday, Ushakov said that Russia was interested in participating in the Nov. 15-16 summit to which Putin had been invited to attend in-person.

Also on Tuesday, a Russian Embassy official in Jakarta said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov would attend a meeting of his counterparts of the G20 in Bali next week.

Though there has been no indication from Moscow that Lavrov will not attend, Russia's participation at G20 events has been a source of tension, including a walkout by US, British and Canadian officials at a G20 finance meeting in April.

Denis Tetiushin, a spokesperson at the Russian embassy, confirmed to Reuters that Lavrov would join the July 7-8 meeting in Bali.

An Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesperson was not able to immediately confirm that.

‘Strong unity’

Indonesia, like most major emerging economies, has tried to maintain a neutral position and has called for a peaceful resolution to Russia's months-long offensive in Ukraine.

Jokowi met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky – whom he has also invited to the G20 summit – on Wednesday and is expected to head to Moscow to meet Putin later in the week.

He has said he will urge peace talks during both meetings.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Group of Seven (G7) leaders showed "strong unity" that "we don't want to drive the G20 apart".

For now, the leaders are still planning "to go there" rather than boycott the event.

The head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has said she did not rule out sitting down with Putin.

It was "important to tell him to his face what we think of him", she said.

G20 nations make up about 80 percent of total world economic output, while the G7 contributes about 31 percent.

Putin joined last year's G20 summit in Rome last October via video conference, due to the coronavirus crisis.

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