PM Modi calls for consensus at G20 foreign ministers' meeting

PM Modi calls for consensus at G20 foreign ministers' meeting

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday called upon the G20 countries to build consensus on pressing global challenges and not allow differences on geopolitical tensions to affect overall cooperation, in comments that came amid a bitter rift within the grouping on the Ukraine conflict.

In his video message at the G20 foreign ministers meeting, Modi also referred to Mahatma Gandhi and Buddha and urged the delegates to draw inspiration from India's civilisational ethos to “focus not on what divides us, but on what unites us.” The foreign ministers from the world's largest industrialised and developing nations gathered to hold crucial deliberations on key global challenges at the meeting which many diplomats believed could be a contentious one as it is taking place amid increasing rift between the US-led West and the Russia-China combine on the Ukraine conflict.