G20 to go all out to resolve West Asia conflict, says PM Narendra Modi

Sandeep Dikshit

New Delhi, November 22

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said the G20 was ready to provide all possible assistance to further diplomacy and talks in order to resolve the conflict in West Asia.

“Diplomacy and talks are the only way to resolve political tensions,” said the PM in his closing remarks at the virtual G20 summit held under India’s presidency. The PM said after listening to the observations by other world leaders, “I can say that G20 has reached an agreement on the West Asia conflict on several issues”.

Enumerating the points on which he felt an agreement was reached was welcoming the announcement of the release of hostages, timely and safe delivery of humanitarian aid, preventing the Israel-Hamas conflict from escalating into a regional conflict and a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine.

The PM began his remarks by stating that there was strong condemnation of terrorism and the killing of unarmed civilians, especially women and children was unacceptable. “There is zero tolerance to terrorism,” he said.

PM Modi also spoke about the “negative effects” of artificial intelligence and made a strong pitch for global regulation of the emerging technology. “India’s thinking is clear, we have to work together on global regulation of AI. We must understand the dangers posed by deepfakes to society and individuals and move forward,” he said.

The PM said in the last one year, G20 had achieved its aim of becoming inclusive, ambitious, action-oriented and decisive. “In one year, we have together achieved this. All of us together have taken G20 to newer heights,” he said. The PM also announced $25 million for developing digital public infrastructure (DPI). India had also readied a digital public infrastructure repository for the G20.

Putin, Chinese Premier attend virtual summit

The virtual summit was attended, among others, by Presidents Vladimir Putin (Russia), Lula da Silva (Brazil), Mohammad bin Zayed (UAE), Recep Erdogan (Turkey); PMs Anthony Albanese (Australia), Fumio Kishida (Japan), Justin Trudeau (Canada) and Sheikh Hasina (Bangladesh). Chinese Premier Li Qiang was also there, though the Presidents of the US, China and South Africa skipped the meet.