The Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said the G20 summit in South Africa is a “huge networking opportunity” for Ireland, adding that Ireland is very honoured to be invited as a guest country this year.
Speaking on his arrival in Johannesburg, where the summit will be held this weekend, he said Irish officials and civil servants had attended over 100 meetings throughout this year, “working on a range of issues, from sustainability, climate, economy and trade, global development, particularly development in Africa.”
He added that “events like this are extremely important to reassert the importance of multilateralism and multilateral bodies”.
This is the first G20 Leaders’ Summit to be held on African soil but it has been controversial, due to the US boycott.
Watch: G20 summit ‘huge networking opportunity for Ireland’, says Taoiseach
For the first time in G20 history, the world’s biggest economy is not sending a delegation.
The US President Donald Trump said it was a “total disgrace” that South Africa was hosting the event, citing claims of “white genocide.”
The Taoiseach said the assertions made were “contested robustly”.
On the US plan for peace between Russia and Ukraine, which appears to involve Ukraine ceding territory to Russia, Mr Martin said he had not yet seen the details.
But he said it would be “just unthinkable that any pressure be put on Ukraine to cede territory that it has successfully resisted various attacks from Russia”.
“But also for the people of those areas,” he added, “they want to live in a democracy, not in an autocracy, where basic rights of citizens are suppressed”.
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“Ukrainians want to belong to the European Union,” he said, adding that “they certainly don’t want to go into a Russian authoritarian state”.
He said he would be discussing the matter with European leaders at the summit this weekend.
Mr Martin will first hold a series of bilateral community and trade meetings later.
South Africa is Ireland’s biggest trading partner on the African continent, with butter, cheese and whiskey the top exports.
Irish whiskey worth €46 million was shipped to the country last year and the market continues to grow, with plenty of it on prominent display on arrival at Johannesburg airport.
Ireland is not a member of the G20 but has been invited as a guest by the South African government.
Why has Ireland been invited?
The two nations have what officials describe as a “warm bilateral relationship” – forged first when Ireland became the first Western nation to ban all apartheid-era goods, famously after a young Dunnes Stores worker refused to ring up South African grapefruits.
Later, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa became a key weapons inspector during the Northern Ireland Peace Process.
Then, last year, Ireland joined South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.
On his visit to Ireland last month, Mr Ramaphosa thanked the Irish people for supporting South Africa’s “initiative of helping the people of Palestine”.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa invited Taoiseach Micheál Martin to the G20
Speaking ahead of his visit to Johannesburg, Mr Martin said: “It is a tremendous honour that Ireland has been invited to participate in the G20 for the first time in history.
“We are deeply grateful to the South African Presidency for this invitation, and my attendance at the Leaders’ Summit is a culmination of work across Government over the past 12 months to make a positive contribution to the work of the G20.”
US not in attendance this year
This is the first G20 Summit to be held on African soil. But there is something of a shadow hanging over it with the United States, the world’s biggest economy, refusing to attend.
Previously, US President Donald Trump said it was a “total disgrace” that South Africa was hosting the summit, citing widely discredited claims of a “white genocide” in the country.
Mr Ramaphosa said South Africa would not be “bullied”.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa had public disputes with US President Donald Trump
The diplomatic spat intensified yesterday when Mr Ramaphosa announced that he had received notice from the United States indicating “a change of mind about participating in one shape, form or other”.
He said the notice came at “a late hour” before the summit but that it was a “positive sign” and discussions were ongoing.
But a short time later, the White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt accused the South African leader of “running his mouth a little bit against the United States and the President of the United States”, which she said was not appreciated by Mr Trump or his team.
Read more:
Oval Office ‘ambush’ shapes US-South Africa relations
Trump confronts Ramaphosa with false genocide claims
“The representative of the embassy in South Africa is simply there to recognise that the United States will be the host of the G20 they are receiving that send off at the end of the event,” she said.
The United States is due to host the event in Miami next year.
“They are not there to participate in official talks, despite what the South African President is falsely claiming,” she added.
South Africa’s chosen theme of “solidarity, equality and sustainability” – a slogan also on prominent display on arrival – was criticised by US officials, with the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier this year calling it “anti-Americanism”.