Focus not on what divides us, but on what unites us

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday called upon the G20 countries to build consensus on pressing global challenges and not allow differences on geopolitical tensions to affect overall cooperation, in comments that came amid a bitter rift within the grouping on the Ukraine conflict.

In his video message at the G20 Foreign Ministers' meeting, Modi also invoked Mahatma Gandhi and Buddha to urge the delegates to draw inspiration from India's civilizational ethos and "focus not on what divides us, but on what unites us."

The Foreign Ministers from the world's largest industrialised and developing nations held crucial deliberations on key global challenges that took place in the backdrop of an increasingly bitter rift between the US-led West and the Russia-China combine over the Ukraine conflict. It is learnt that the Indian side has been trying very hard to arrive at a joint communique but several diplomats from the West said the possibility of an agreed text was unlikely due to the fractured East-West relations over the war in Ukraine.

In his address, the Prime Minister said the world looks upon the G20 to ease the challenges of growth, development, economic resilience, disaster resilience, financial stability, trans-national crime, corruption; terrorism, and food and energy security. "In all these areas, the G20 has capacity to build consensus and deliver concrete results. We should not allow issues that we cannot resolve together to come in the way of those we can," Modi said without making any reference to the Ukraine conflict or any other contentious issues.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, China's Qin Gang, the UK's James Cleverly and European Union's High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell Fontelles are among those attending the meeting chaired by External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.