US, Canada see growing interest in limited ceasefire in Black Sea

ATLANTA, Oct 31 - US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Saturday said there was growing interest by the international community in facilitating a limited ceasefire in the Black Sea to ensure unfettered energy and grain shipments by Russia and Ukraine.

Rubio told a news conference that the US is reviewing proposals by Turkey and India to get grain shipments moving, even as the US continues to press for a broader, negotiated settlement of the war, which is now in its fifth year.

Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine took center stage at a two-day meeting of foreign ministers from the Group of 20, in part due to the participation of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov over the objections of European and Canadian leaders, who argued that including him normalized Russia's aggression.

The meeting ended without a joint statement or agreement on the myriad issues facing the world's largest economies.

Rubio defended the invitation of Lavrov, saying it would be impossible to end the war diplomatically without talking with Russia, but admitting that such a deal was not on the immediate horizon. He said the US spoke frequently with Ukrainian leaders, although Ukraine's foreign minister was not invited.

He said there was growing interest - if not momentum - in partial deals such as halting attacks on ships carrying grain and, in some cases, energy, in the Black Sea.

"This is threatening the world for food security and some energy security as well," Rubio told reporters after a two-day meeting of foreign ministers from the world's 20 largest economies, which revealed big rifts over the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.

"We'd like to achieve it. It doesn't solve the war, but at least it solves a unique aspect of it," Rubio said, adding that a negotiated settlement remained a top priority for US officials, despite the failure to get there yet.

"There's a very nasty war going on, a very destructive war," Rubio said, adding that the war was already threatening to escalate to other countries given irregular efforts at sabotage and drone strikes that wandered into NATO airspace.

Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand told Reuters in an interview that she would not have chosen to invite Lavrov, but she used the occasion to confront him directly about Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

"I stared him in the eye and called out Russia's further illegal invasion of Ukraine, the stealing of Ukrainian children, the targeting of Ukrainian ships in the Black Sea, all of which are reprehensible, all of which are contrary to international law and international humanitarian law," Anand said, citing her remarks during a closed-door plenary session on Friday.

Anand said she had spoken with Ukraine's foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, as well as her counterpart from India, about enacting a limited ceasefire in the Black Sea and putting a moratorium on attacks on Ukraine's electrical infrastructure.

Anand said a number of interlocutors were pushing for some kind of ceasefire, with a huge focus on shoring up food supply chains and brokering an end to attacks on Ukraine's electrical grid and energy infrastructure before the coming winter.

"We have to address these issues now as Ukraine approaches the winter," she said, noting that Canada had been engaged in significant and specific talks about a Black Sea ceasefire since the United Nations General Assembly in September.

India and Egypt were two countries that were heavily affected, and wanted to ensure that their own ships - and sailors - remained safe. Ukraine was fully engaged on the issue, but Russia had not shown it was willing to move ahead, she said.

Lavrov on Friday told reporters that Moscow's position on the Ukraine conflict was unchanged, and Russia could not accept Ukraine as a "military threat to the lawful security interests of the Russian Federation," according to Russian news agencies.

Rubio urged G20 participants on Friday to cooperate where possible given the complex web of economic and geopolitical challenges facing nearly every country.

"Because we all face these challenges, we must all work together to address them," he said. "The future of our nations depends on our willingness to understand that while our interests may not always align, we should always seek to work together to advance them when and where they do align."

Rubio told reporters that he spoke briefly with Lavrov on the sidelines of the meeting about the opportunity for US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin to meet at the APEC meeting next month and the G20 leaders summit to be held at Trump's Doral golf resort in Miami in December.

Rubio said there was no firm commitment for Putin to attend the G20 summit. He said he wouldn't rule out the possibility that Trump would invite Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, especially "if something positive could happen as a result of him attending." REUTERS