RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Indonesia will host the G20 summit, which President Vladimir Putin plans to attend. Despite pressure from the West, Indonesian leader Joko Widodo does not want to disinvite his Russian counterpart. In the Global South, diplomacy is the order of the day.
Joko Widodo, President of Indonesia, is currently on a tour of Europe. After attending the G7 summit in Germany as a guest, he will visit Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.
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For the head of state of the world’s most populous Muslim country, the most important thing is to end the food crisis, especially since the Indonesian population is also suffering from high prices.
President Joko Widodo of Indonesia, the host of this year’s G20 summit, will meet with his counterparts in Russia and Ukraine to urge a halt to the war. He will head to Kyiv and Moscow this week. https://t.co/0ztN8gSxZZ
— The New York Times (@nytimes) June 27, 2022
“The mission is to … ask President Zelensky to open a dialogue forum for peace, to bring peace because the war must be ended,” Widodo said at a news conference in Jakarta on June 26.
The two leaders will also discuss the food supply chain, which needs to be reactivated soon. Widodo will travel to Moscow from Kyiv, where he will ask Putin for an immediate cessation of the war and the start of a dialogue with Zelensky.
The Russian head of state has refused to meet his Ukrainian counterpart.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo is heading for Kiev & Moscow from the G7 venue in Bavarian Alps to which he was invited by Germany as special guest where he met with Western leaders. Sometimes in life, wishes do come true: Is Widodo on a peace mission on Ukraine?
— M. K. Bhadrakumar (@BhadraPunchline) June 27, 2022
Meanwhile, Jakarta has refused to disinvite Vladimir Putin from the G20 summit to be held in Indonesia this November. Western countries led by the United States had pressured the Indonesian government to deny the Russian leader participation.
But for Jakarta, which maintains good diplomatic relations with Moscow, such a move is out of the question. However, Ukraine was the country’s leading supplier of wheat, so export problems are now directly affecting Indonesia.
#G7: President Biden and Indonesian President Joko Widodo share a hug prior to a group photo of the Outreach working session on the second day of the G7 summit at Schloss Elmau. pic.twitter.com/KEM4qtFtkA
— Forbes (@Forbes) June 27, 2022
Widodo’s trip also makes it clear, however, that the Global South has no interest in launching such a sharp confrontation and sanctions policy as the U.S.-led West does.
Instead, they are relying on diplomacy and trying to cushion the adverse economic effects on their own countries as best they can. At the same time, the West has no problem driving its economies (and those in the rest of the world) to the wall with a harsh sanctions regime.