G20 nations broadly back a two-state solution to the conflict in the Middle East, host Brazil said Thursday after a meeting of top diplomats, adding to pressure on Israel to accept an independent Palestinian state.
The support for a two-state solution from the Group of 20 leading economies came a day after Israel’s parliament overwhelmingly voted to oppose any “unilateral” recognition of a Palestinian state, in a move Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said sent a “powerful message to the international community.”
Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip was a central focus of the two-day meeting of G20 foreign ministers in Rio de Janeiro, along with Russia’s war in Ukraine and the ineffectiveness of the United Nations and other global institutions in the face of mounting conflicts and polarization.
There was “virtual unanimity for the two-state solution as the only possible solution” in the Middle East, Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira told journalists.
“The only reason (Vieira) didn’t simply say ‘unanimity’ is that not every speaker addressed the issue,” a Brazilian foreign ministry source told AFP.
“Every (minister) that addressed the issue voiced support” for a two-state solution, “and it was a lot” of ministers, he said.
The meeting brought together top diplomats including US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.
Borrell had urged Vieira to use his closing statement on the meeting “to explain to the world that at the G20, everybody was in favor” of a two-state solution, with an independent Palestine co-existing with Israel.
“Everybody here, everybody, I haven’t heard anyone against it. It was a strong request for a two-state solution,” Borrell told journalists.
“The common denominator is that there’s not going to be peace, there’s not going to be sustainable security for Israel, unless the Palestinians have a clear political prospect to build (their) own state.”
More than four months into its military campaign in the Gaza Strip, where warnings of a humanitarian catastrophe are mounting by the day, Israel faces growing international pressure for the creation of a Palestinian state — including from key ally the United States.
The war started after Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack which resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Hamas militants also took about 250 hostages — 130 of whom remain in Gaza, including 30 presumed dead, according to Israel.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 29,410 people, mostly women and children, according to the latest count by Gaza’s health ministry.
– Russia, West clash –
Vieira said “various countries” at the G20 meeting had also reiterated their condemnation of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
But there was little sign of diplomatic progress.
Russia’s Lavrov lashed out at the West for its criticism following the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny in prison Friday.
“They (the West) act like prosecutor, accuser, judge and executioner — all in one. This hysteria over Navalny’s death has shown this convincingly,” he told journalists.
“These people have no right to interfere in our internal affairs.”
He said he had had no contact with Western officials. His last meeting with Blinken was a tense encounter on the sidelines of a G20 gathering in India in March 2023.
Despite a push by Western countries to condemn the invasion, the G20’s last summit ended with a watered-down statement denouncing the use of force but not explicitly naming Russia, which maintains friendly ties with India and Brazil, among other members.
Lavrov “presented a set of alternative facts about what happened in Ukraine before their invasion, in order to justify” it, Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide, who was invited to the meeting as an observer, told journalists.
It was the first high-level meeting of the year for the G20, which will hold its annual leaders’ summit in Rio in November.
