‘Hope when Brazil opens G20 Summit, war has ended and we are back to normal times’: President Lula

On assuming presidency for the next G20 summit, Lula said, “Brazil has the conditions to be the host country of G20 next year. We want to use many cities in Brazil to organise a great number of events there… I am hoping that when we open the G20 Summit in Brazil, the war has ended and we went back to normal times. And Ukrainian people went back to their homes, and we started a reconstruction process of what was destroyed in Ukraine and the food production will go back to be normalised…”

A day earlier, Prime Minister Narendra Modi handed over the G20 Presidency gavel to Lula and said, “We have full faith in the Troika spirit. We will provide our full support to Brazil and are confident that under their leadership, the G-20 will further our shared goals.” Modi also proposed holding a virtual session at the end of November to take stock of the progress made on the suggestions in New Delhi.

On Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin skipping the G20 Summit in India, Lula said, “I do not know the reason why Putin and Xi did not come to this meeting. Maybe he has an explanation because of the war or something like that. But we will invite them and I hope that they will participate in Rio. I hope they will participate in Brazil… When the G20, now G21 [as the African Union joins in] presumes in Brazil, I hope all the countries participate, but we will only know if they will participate or not when the time comes.”

Speaking about the issues that will be discussed at the Summit hosted by Brazil next year, Lula told the reporters, “It is a lot of responsibility for Brazil to host the G20 Summit next year. We will put the inequality issue as the core issue for the next G20 process… inequalities of gender, race, education. We have to build an understanding that the world needs more balance in terms of the wealth distribution that is being produced…”

“Another issue that we are going to discuss is the energy transition. Brazil has extraordinary potential in the production of clean energy. It has a lot to teach to the other countries and that’s why we want to share what we are capable to do so that they can produce it in their own respective countries…,” Lula continued.

“We are also going to discuss the reform of the multilateral institutions. We also want to discuss permanent membership of the UN Security Council…,” he added.

(with inputs from ANI, PTI)

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