Russian President Vladimir Putin may have ditched this year's G20 Summit, but will attend next year's scheduled in Brazil? If he does, will Brazil arrest the Russian leader, against whom the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant?
Brazil president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has passed the buck to the judiciary, saying it would be "up to Brazil's judiciary to decide whether Putin would be arrested."
"If Putin decides to join (next year's summit), it is the judiciary's power to decide (on a possible arrest) and not my government," Lula told reporters on the sidelines of the G20 Summit. His statement comes just after he said in an interview that there was "no way Putin would be arrested" if he attended the summit in Rio de Janeiro.
However, Lula made his stance clear on the ICC, stating that there was a need to review the country's accession to the ICC when nations like the U.S., China and India had not done so. Brazil is a signatory to the Rome Statute that led to the founding of the ICC. "I want to know why the U.S., India and China didn't sign the ICC treaty and why our country signed it," Lula said.
The ICC arrest warrant was issued against Putin in March, accusing him of the war crime of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine, a claim Russia denies.
The last two G20 Summits, held in Bali and New Delhi, were represented by Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov. "If Putin decides to join (next year's summit), it is the judiciary's power to decide (on a possible arrest) and not my government," Lula said.
Brazil officially will take over the mantle of the G20 presidency on December 1 and the next Summit is scheduled to be held at the popular seaside resort city of Rio de Janeiro in November 2024.
Meanwhile, the Brazilian president also praised India for the successful organisation of the Summit. "I would like to congratulate India for organising the Summit exceptionally well. We have received great warmth from the Indian people. Brazil has the conditions to be the host country of G20 next year. We want to use many cities in Brazil to organise a great number of events there," he said.
The President added that he hoped the Ukraine war would end by the time Brazil hosts the Summit next year. He said he was aware of why Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping did not attend the Summit. "But I will invite them and I hope that they will come to Brazil and participate in the Summit. I hope that when we open the Summit in Brazil, I hope there is no more war and we are back to normal times..."
He said he would put the inequality issue as the core issue for the next G20 process for discussion. "There's a lot of inequality in the world. We have few with a lot and many with very few resources. And so we have to build an understanding that the world needs more balance in terms of the wealth distribution that is being produced, so that we do not have to sleep every day to knowing that there's 730 million people that are in hunger. And so this is a very extremely important there's a lot of sensitivity," Lula added.