A U.S.-hosted gathering of foreign ministers got off to an awkward start on Friday when a planned group photo was canceled after some diplomats refused to pose alongside Russia’s top diplomat, Sergey Lavrov.
The ministers are in Atlanta for a two-day meeting of the Group of 20, a forum of major nations that seek to coordinate global economic and political policy.
Russia is a longtime member of the group, which also includes Brazil, Japan, Saudi Arabia, China, Japan and several European states. But many European diplomats believe that Russian officials like Mr. Lavrov should be shunned over Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
Speaking to reporters in Atlanta, Poland’s deputy prime minister and foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, said the photo cancellation was “the right decision.”
“I am not the only one who does not want to be photographed with Lavrov,” he added.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is hosting the event, made the decision to cancel the traditional photo, according to a senior U.S. official.
Mr. Lavrov has been under U.S. sanctions since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. He led his country’s talks with the United States ostensibly meant to avert the war, although Biden administration officials later concluded that those talks were not in good faith.
After President Trump encouraged President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia last month to attend a planned December meeting of G20 leaders in Miami, 14 senators from both parties sent a letter to the White House urging that neither Mr. Putin “nor any sanctioned Russian officials be permitted at upcoming G20 events.”
Mr. Trump’s envoys have conducted extensive talks with Mr. Putin in an effort to broker a peace agreement for Ukraine. In their letter, the senators warned Mr. Trump against “legitimizing and normalizing a government that continues to attack Ukrainian civilian targets every day.”
Asked this month about Mr. Lavrov’s expected attendance, Mr. Rubio — who as a U.S. senator was a fierce critic of Russia but has softened his public stance since joining the Trump administration — seemed lukewarm.
“Well, the Russians are invited to be a part of the G20,” Mr. Rubio said. “The president made that decision. So obviously they’re going to be represented at each of these summits.”
Mr. Lavrov was also excluded from an equivalent photo session at a Sept. 1 meeting of G20 finance ministers in North Carolina.
Trump officials said they expected the Atlanta gathering to focus on economic issues, including global energy supplies and the related question of freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran has menaced shipping since the United States and Israel launched a war against the country in February.
Speaking at an opening session on Friday morning, Mr. Rubio said the world was “at a critical moment.”
“We are facing a series of interconnected economic and geopolitical crises” that threaten the global economic order, Mr. Rubio said. The G20 needs to work together, he added, to address disruptions to global energy and food supplies and “to freedom of navigation itself.”
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