G20 Foreign Ministers End Atlanta Meeting Without a Joint Statement as Divisions Over Ukraine and Iran Persist

Foreign ministers from the Group of 20 ended two days of talks in Atlanta on Saturday without agreement on a joint statement, closing a meeting where divisions over Russia’s war in Ukraine and the war involving the United States, Israel and Iran ran through the opening session.

Instead of a joint communique, the group will rely on a chairman’s statement summarizing the talks, which Secretary of State Marco Rubio is to release at the conclusion, according to diplomats who attended. The diplomats said a chairman’s statement had long been the plan, given the depth of the differences among the members.

The group photo that did not happen

Rubio, who opened the talks with an appeal for unity, canceled the traditional group photograph of the foreign ministers on Friday after European diplomats objected to the inclusion of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and threatened to boycott or walk out of the picture. The dispute set the tone for a meeting where, according to diplomats, Russia’s position on Ukraine was described as unyielding.

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, attending a G20 meeting as a guest for the first time, told reporters he was not surprised by the failure to reach consensus. “We have wars going on, and we have participants in those wars around the table, so it’s very difficult to agree on a common line,” he said.

According to the diplomats, the gaps covered the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the United States-Israeli war against Iran, United States tariffs and Chinese actions in the South China Sea. All have fed spikes in the global cost of fuel and uncertainty about trade, the diplomats said.

What comes next

The ministers agreed to keep working toward the G20 leaders summit in Florida in December, hosted by President Donald Trump, and the diplomats said all had agreed to try to overcome their differences despite the long odds. Washington had said a top item for the meeting was freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, the Red Sea, the Black Sea and the South China Sea.

The meeting also exposed a dispute over membership itself: the diplomats said the disagreements included the Trump administration’s decision not to invite G20 member South Africa, over the objections of other participants. On the sidelines, Rubio met with his Saudi counterpart, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, and Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, whose country has acted as a mediator. The talks opened days after the State Department approved a proposed $2.1 billion sale of Patriot air defense interceptors for Ukraine, a subject covered in our report on the opening of the Atlanta talks.

Reporting based on coverage by The Associated Press and Reuters.