MOSCOW, December 2. /TASS/. The Group of Twenty summit that ended in Argentina on Saturday was a summit of bilateral contacts that proved that it is much easier for the leaders to reach agreements on concrete topics with concrete countries, a senior Russian lawmaker said on Sunday.
"The Group of Twenty summit in the long run became a summit of bilateral contacts. It turned out that it is much easier for the world leaders to reach agreement on concrete topics with concrete countries rather that to act in common interest. It looks like the atmosphere of national egoism set, to a larger extent, by the American leader, proved to be contagious," Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the international committee of Russia’s Federation Council upper parliament house, wrote on his Facebook account.
According to Kosachev, US President Donald Trump seemed to have arrived in Argentina only to meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping ahead of a large-scale trade war. "Since it would be, to put it mildly, an exaggeration to say that Donald Trump sincerely wanted to discuss the climate or the WTO (World Trade Organization) in a multilateral format," he noted.
In his words, it is senseless to reduce Russia’s participation in the summit only to whether Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Trump or not. "In the current situation, when the White House chief is under domestic ‘fire’ for the very fact of a meeting with the Russian leader, it would be silly to even expect anything productive from such talks," Kosachev explained.
He also noted that Ukraine’s latest provocation had proved its worth as Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko had managed to "safely block any constructive developments in the relations between the West and Russia, which, obviously, was one of the purposes of the Kerch Strait incident." "We can only be sorry for the Americans and Europeans who have made themselves hostages to Kiev’s provokers," he wrote, adding that there was no room for very important global problems, such as non-proliferation and nuclear arms reduction, anti-terror efforts, humanitarian assistance.
Nevertheless, according to Kosachev, the summit was rather constructive thanks to the diplomatic success of Putin’s bilateral contacts with the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Japan and Turkey.
The Russian lawmaker noted however that it is serious question how viable is now the very format of the Group of Twenty, "when the West is not ready to discuss certain topics that would set global rules on condition of general equality and mutually beneficial cooperation between the world powers."
This said, dialogue in the Group of Twenty format is still necessary as it makes it possible "to bring the world’s opinion home to those who stick to the unipolar model," Kosachev noted.
In general, the Group of Twenty summit is Argentina was quite productive, despite its declarative results. "Statements on the need to reform the World Trade Organization (WTO), on the need to encourage economic growth, the topic of refugees and humanitarian assistance to them, and the commitment to the Paris Agreement on climate change - all this constitute a minimum on which the world’s leading nations can reach an agreement, although in a declarative form," he emphasized.
Any meeting is such format today "is exploration of the negotiating capacities of the West in general and the United State under Donald Trump in particular," Kosachev noted. "So far, there are big problems with that."
The Group of Twenty summit yielded a joint declaration on Saturday. It was not clear till the very end of the summit whether a final declaration would be ultimately passed.
The Group of Twenty nations agreed that the system of international trade and the World Trade Organization need to be improved. Possible reforms will be in focus of the next such summit in Japan in 2019.
The joint declaration reflected a gap in the positions of the United States and other member nations on climate change. The United States reiterated its plans to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, while the rest of the G20 nations confirmed their commitment to the development of clean energy.
The Group of Twenty also approved an anti-corruption plan of action for the next three years. Apart from that, the G20 leaders called for measures to prevent the use of the internet in terrorism purposes and stressed the importance of joint actions to address the causes why people have to flee their countries.