Johannesburg - (Saba):
G20 foreign ministers meet in Johannesburg on Thursday in a meeting dominated by a busy global agenda but in the absence or near-absence of the Americans, who decided not to send a high-level representative.
The foreign ministers are meeting for two days of talks, held for the first time in Africa, in preparation for the G20 summit scheduled for November.
The meeting begins at 2:00 pm (12:00 GMT) with a speech by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.
South Africa, the first African country to lead the forum, assumed the presidency of the G20 last year, in a move aimed at getting rich countries to listen to less wealthy ones.
The group currently includes 19 countries, in addition to the European Union and the African Union, representing more than 80% of the world's gross domestic product and two-thirds of the world's population.
But the United States, the group’s richest member, will not take part in the two-day talks after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced he would not attend, accusing Pretoria of having an “anti-US” agenda.
South Africa’s ambassador and deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, Colisa Maphungu, said on Wednesday that wars and conflicts in Africa and Europe would be common themes.
But Priyal Singh, a researcher at the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria, told AFP that “the big issue will be the geopolitical context in which this meeting takes place.”
The talks come amid heightened tensions over Russia’s war in Ukraine after US President Donald Trump appeared to blame Kiev for Russia’s nearly three-year-old war.
Trump’s comments came hours after Russian and US delegations held talks in Saudi Arabia on the war in Ukraine, without the latter participating.
Singh said the “fracture that is forming between the US and its European partners” had become clear, adding that this threatened to “hinder” South Africa’s ability to move forward with a “common development agenda.”
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