“India, a bridge builder…” Geopolitical expert Velina Tchakarova hails India’s G20 presidency
Nov 26, 2023
Cape Town (South Africa), Nov 26 (ANI): Velina Tchakarova, a Geopolitical expert on November 26 hailed India’s G20 presidency and called it “extremely successful”. Talking to ANI on India’s G20 presidency being the voice of the Global South, Velina Tchakarova said, “In my view, this was an extremely successful presidency by India, and there are several reasons for that. First and foremost, there was an expectation that there would be no joint declaration at the end of this one-year process. You have hundreds of meetings throughout the year, many important ones as well, between foreign ministers or defence ministers. And at the end of this journey, you finalize the process with the summit. There were significant fears that a joint declaration wouldn’t be possible because we know for a fact that right now, and this has nothing to do with India specifically, there is a very big conflict between the United States on the one hand, and China and Russia on the other. And not only because of Russia’s war against Ukraine, which is ongoing and which looks like it's going to last at least for the next few years. So this is the first thing.” “It happened also at the level of the Security Council of the United Nations. The second important point is that, of course, India has a traditionally strong relationship with Russia. It has a very conflicting relationship with China. It has a growing relationship with the United States. So it's a kind of a bridge builder right now. It has actually the best, let's say, position to take the best from both worlds, right? From the West and from China, Russia, let's say, kind of led regional formats, such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization or BRICS. Okay, so against this background, of course, the expectation was that there would be more troubles on the horizon rather than successful achievements. But in the end, it was the Indian diplomacy. It was also the experience of India how to deal with and how to tackle these issues. And I argued that the Joint Declaration, with more than 90 bullet points, including five bullet points on the ongoing war in Ukraine, has been a big achievement,” she added.
