MOSCOW, July 8. /TASS/. There was no boycott by Russia at the G20 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Indonesia, but the West failed to organize it, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters on Friday.
"There was no [boycott] from us, it is not our practices. The boycott by the West failed, while the organizers had done their utmost to make sure that the meeting was top-notch and did meet all the [requirements] for discussion," the diplomat noted.
According to Zakharova, after the G7 had failed to organize a boycott of the Russian delegation, they incited the Western media to come up with this theme.
"As soon as they eventually realized that they were in the absolute minority (because if you take away seven from twenty countries, you get 13 and those countries were not planning to organize any boycotts, but were going to work in a constructive way), they switched to other tactics," Zakharova said.
"When the boycott failed and transformed into a boycott or self-isolation of the G7, then they simply unleashed the Western media to report this issue back, to work it up and to make up something at least virtually," she said.
"Western journalists were running around the hall holding notebooks and even watches, and were trying to figure out who was in the meeting room, who had walked out, who and how long was outside during the sessions, and so on. They were trying to have the best of the topic of the boycott, although no party did any boycott," the diplomat added.
As Zakharova underscored, the US-led countries of the West were unable to turn the G20 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting into yet another "get-together and scandal."
In her words, the G20 is a platform where crucial issues should be solved that are related to food, energy and finance as well as to what the West has done "trying to push on their ideology of supremacy of unilateral sanctions and everything associated with this."
The diplomat added that Western liberal regimes do not take an interest in the fate of the world, but "are exceptionally keen on colonial thinking."
"The G7 countries, which are the ideological backbone of the Western regimes led by the United States, attempted to turn even this opportunity into another sort of get-together and scandal. Well, they failed to do it, but it would be worth examining the attempt more closely," the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman concluded.