{"id":662275,"date":"2026-10-31T02:16:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-31T02:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/662275\/"},"modified":"2026-10-31T02:16:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-31T02:16:10","slug":"us-cancels-g20-family-photo-after-australia-uk-and-others-refuse-to-appear-with-russia-g20","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/662275\/","title":{"rendered":"US cancels G20 \u2018family photo\u2019 after Australia, UK and others refuse to appear with Russia | G20"},"content":{"rendered":"

The traditional \u201cfamily photo\u201d to open the G20 foreign ministers\u2019 meeting has been abruptly cancelled in the US after a host of nations \u2013 including Australia and the UK \u2013 refused to appear beside the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov.<\/p>\n

The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, pulled the plug after several European officials, the UK and Australia made it known they would boycott or walk out of the snapshot that often kicks off such international gatherings.<\/p>\n

Rubio still opened the talks in Atlanta with an appeal for unity on the issues that threaten international security and trade.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are in a critical moment,\u201d Rubio told his colleagues. \u201cWe are facing a series of interconnected economic and geopolitical crises.\u201d<\/p>\n

About one-third of countries at the talks made it known they would not appear beside any Russian representatives.<\/p>\n

European Union nations had made clear they would boycott any photo with the Russians. \u201cIn no case will there be a family photo with European partners and Mr Lavrov together because \u2026 there is no normality with Russia,\u201d Germany\u2019s foreign affairs minister, Johann Wadephul, warned ahead of Friday\u2019s session.<\/p>\n

The UK foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, promised similar. \u201cWe do not engage in that way with the Russians and have not for a number of years,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

During the meeting\u2019s opening session, Australia\u2019s foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, condemned Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine in front of Lavrov and said Russia\u2019s illegal war had affected international markets and worsened global food security.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Wong said Australia supported the US decision to cancel the group photo. \u201cAustralia has been clear and consistent: we will not normalise Russia\u2019s brutal and illegal invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur focus at the G20<\/a> remains on the important work before us and addressing the challenges facing the global economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The schism in Atlanta is yet further evidence of the rupture caused by the Trump administration\u2019s attempt to reintegrate Russia and its isolated president, Vladimir Putin, into the international community despite Putin\u2019s ongoing war against Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Diplomats who attended the opening session described it as cordial but said Russia\u2019s position on Ukraine is unyielding \u2013 as is its opposition to Poland\u2019s membership in the G20.<\/p>\n

Those disagreements, which also include the Trump administration\u2019s not inviting G20 member South Africa over the objections of others, will probably prevent the foreign ministers from producing a joint communique when the meetings wrap up on Saturday, participants said.<\/p>\n

That did not surprise the Polish deputy prime minister and foreign minister, Rados\u0142aw Sikorski, representing his country at its first time as a guest at a G20 meeting.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have wars going on and we have participants in those wars around the table, so it\u2019s very difficult to agree a common line,\u201d he told reporters.<\/p>\n

Several participants, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss the closed-door talks, said all had agreed to try to overcome their differences despite the long odds and to work to make next month\u2019s G20 leaders\u2019 summit hosted by the president, Donald Trump, in Florida a success.<\/p>\n

Ukraine, which is not a G20 member but was invited to attend previous meetings, was not invited this year, with US officials saying it was a deliberate choice to include only formal members of the group. Poland, not a member, is seeking formal membership with US support.<\/p>\n

But missing from the invitation list was South Africa, a G20 founding member and the only African country in the group. South Africa is embroiled in several bitter disputes with the Trump administration, and when it chaired the G20 last year, top US officials, including Trump and Rubio, shunned the meetings it hosted.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have consistently maintained that our nonparticipation is not voluntary,\u201d Phindile Kunene, a spokesperson for the South African international relations minister, Ronald Lamola, said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The traditional \u201cfamily photo\u201d to open the G20 foreign ministers\u2019 meeting has been abruptly cancelled in the US…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":662276,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-662275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=662275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662275\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/662276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}