Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar has said that developing countries in the Global South were feeling “frustrated” with rich countries in the West, as the problems of surging food and fuel prices were being “neglected” in the global decision-making process.
During a discussion at Sydney-based think tank the Lowy Institute on Tuesday, Jaishankar warned that a “new set of problems” could be created between the developing nations and advanced economies if the questions of energy and food security exacerbated by the Ukraine crisis weren’t addressed.
“In a way it (the Ukraine crisis) can be looked [at] as an East-West conflict with a North-South dimension to it. If the South feels that the North is tone deaf, that their sufferings are not being addressed, then that will create a new set of problems,” said Jaishankar.
The foreign minister explained that “a large part of the world today is hurting because of the conflict.”
“Their daily lives are being impacted in a very damaging manner,” he added.
Jaishankar said that he met foreign ministers from around 100 countries on the sidelines of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in New York last month and most of his counterparts wanted to bring a “speedy end” to the ongoing crisis in eastern Europe.
“For them, some kind of speedy remedy to the challenges they face in terms of energy and food security… Those are really, really pressing challenges,” the top Indian diplomat remarked.
Jaishankar said that problems caused in the developing countries must be “factored in” in the global decision-making process.
There has been a significant surge in global food and fuel prices in the wake of the Ukraine crisis, as Western countries try to starve Russia of revenues generated by its energy and commodities exports. The US, EU, and other Western partners such as Japan have so far imposed eight rounds of sanctions against Moscow and warned other countries against carrying out business with Moscow.
However, countries like India and China have not only rejected the unilateral Western sanctions, but even scaled up their energy imports from Russia in view of the surging prices.
A plan floated by the G7 club to cap the prices of Russian energy exports has also failed to find much support among developing economies.
The latest remarks by the Indian foreign minister came a day after Russia carried out long-range precision air, sea, and land-based strikes against Ukrainian energy, military, and communications facilities.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that the retaliatory strikes were carried out in response to the bombing of a crucial bridge connecting Crimea to the Russian mainland a day before. In particular, the Russian leader condemned Saturday's explosion on the Crimean Bridge as a terrorist attack aimed at destroying Russian civilian infrastructure and vowed harsh retaliation to any more attacks from Ukraine.