Diplomacy, With An Exit Row
Many delegates to the International Monetary Fund’s steering committee walked out Saturday when Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov addressed the group in Russian, according to three people familiar with the meeting who spoke to Reuters.
The walkout signaled that the argument over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has followed the global economy into the meeting room. The IMF’s steering committee is supposed to discuss the world’s financial plumbing; instead, the room briefly became a live demonstration of geopolitical plumbing backing up.
One Speech, Several Doorways
Reuters reported the incident from the IMF and World Bank meetings in Bangkok. The report did not describe the walkout as a vote or formal procedural action, just a large group of delegates deciding that the most useful contribution they could make was being somewhere else.
That is not exactly a diplomatic breakthrough. It is, however, a very clear meeting review: the content was objectionable, the language was Russian, and the audience discovered it had legs.
The Bottom Line
International institutions can keep their agendas, communiqués and carefully neutral furniture. The delegates supplied the blunt version: when a Russian official spoke in Russian, many of them walked out. Sometimes the minutes need a diagram.
Source
Reuters: IMFC chair says global economy resilient; delegates walk out on Russian official