Diplomacy Watch: Veteran diplomats question Blinken’s ‘do not engage’ strategy, responsiblestatecraft.org

Ben Armbruster, managing editor of Responsible Statecraft

At the Group of 20 meetings in Bali last Friday, Retno Marsudi, the host nation’s foreign minister, urged the world’s leading economic powers to work towards ending the war in Ukraine, noting that “the ripple effects are being felt globally on food, on energy and physical space.”

“It is our responsibility to end the war sooner rather than later and settle our differences at the negotiating table, not at the battlefield,” she said.

But stark divisions between factions led by the United States and Europe on one side, and Russia and to some extent China on the other, meant that the proceedings concluded with no consensus on the matter. The G20 foreign ministers took no group photo as is customary and they issued no joint communique. Instead, the AP pointed out, “acrimony appeared pervasive, especially between Russia and Western participants.” Läs artikel