PRETORIA, May 12. /TASS/. South Africa expects the leaders of all G20 countries to attend the upcoming summit of the association in Johannesburg in November, South African International Relations and Cooperation Minister Ronald Ozzy Lamola said at a briefing in response to a question from TASS.
"The G20 is for all leaders of the G20, and all G20 leaders are invited to attend," he said. "The G20 is for its members, so all of them are invited," the top diplomat reiterated.
The minister added that South Africa would calmly accept a situation where individual countries would be represented by foreign ministers at the summit. "The Russian president did not attend the Brazil summit, Russia was represented by the Minister of Foreign Affairs," Lamola recalled. "Russia will participate and will be represented at the leaders’ summit," he noted. The top diplomat also did not comment on the participation of the US in the summit.
In April, US President Donald Trump said that he did not intend to attend the G20 summit in South Africa.
The G20 summit will kick off under the South African chairmanship on November 22 in Johannesburg. It is expected that along with the leaders of the G20 states, leaders of a number of developing countries will participate in its work. Invitations have already been sent to the leaders of Algeria, Angola, Egypt, Nigeria and Ethiopia.
South Africa took over the G20 rotating chairmanship from Brazil on December 1, 2024, for a year. Under the theme "Solidarity, Equality and Sustainability," Pretoria is hosting more than 130 events in different formats and at different levels. The culmination will be the G20 summit in Johannesburg.