RIO DE JANEIRO: Brazil strongly criticized the inaction of the UN Security Council on the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine as it opened a G20 meeting on Wednesday.
The foreign ministers from the world’s largest economies gather in Brazilian city for the Group of 20’s first high-level conference of the year.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, are also attending the two-day meeting.
Brazil’s top diplomat, Mauro Vieira, opening the meeting said the continuation of the conflicts worldwide shows the global institutions like the United Nations are not working properly.
He said multilateral institutions are not properly equipped to handle the current challenges, as has been demonstrated by the Security Council’s inability on the ongoing conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine.
Security Council fails to stop Gaza war
The UN Security Council has failed to act on Russia’s war against Ukraine, because of Russian veto power, and has struggled to stop a war in Gaza, as the United States use its veto to block calls for a ceasefire.
Brazil, which took over the G20 presidency from India in December last year, has expressed hopes the group could be a platform to make progress on such questions.
The President of Brazil Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva ignited a diplomatic row by accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza comparing its military offensive in the Palestinian enclave to the Holocaust.
The comments drew strong reaction from Israel, which declared him persona non grata in Tel Aviv.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who met Lula Wednesday in Brasilia before attending the G20, said that his country disagrees with his comments. More than four months of war in Gaza there is a little sign of progress toward peace.
Despite an effort by Western countries to condemn the Russia’s war against Ukraine, the G20’s last conference ended with a mere statement denouncing the use of force but not explicitly naming Russia.
Blinken has expressed optimism on the current chances for diplomacy on Ukraine in his meeting with Lula.
