Why exactly is it being called a historic moment?I think it’s a historic moment because, for the first time, we’ve had a G 20 where the declaration has achieved 100% consensus on all developments, on all climate issues, and all geopolitical issues. It’s a document with no brackets, no reservations, no footnotes, no chair summary. Secondly, this demonstrates Prime Minister Modi’s and India’s great ability to be a huge bridge between emerging markets, developed countries, Russia, China, and bring them all together to the table. Thirdly, this is a unique moment, because it has brought multilateralism back to centre stage. Fourthly, it has demonstrated that you can do very ambitious, you can do very inclusive, and you can do very decisive action despite challenges across the world.

It’s a historic moment, because this is not just a great achievement for India, but a great achievement for all emerging markets because this document is really a voice of the Global South; it is written from the perspective of the Global South. If you read the document, I don’t think G 20 has ever produced such a powerful, such a committed and such an important document in its history.

So what was the main challenge? Was it the language that was going to be used around Ukraine and the war there?Well, there were very many challenges on the climate side, on the energy side; they were huge. When you come to the final round and sherpa track, you have to arrive at a final document. And then the negotiation takes place, all together, on all issues. And therefore, there were challenges on climate and energy side, because there were paras which had not been finalized and discussions went to the wire almost to the last. I must say that China being a multilateral player -- we had all developed a very good relationship with the Chinese team and we were able to discuss, we were able to interact and we were able to sort out issues.

So China played a key role?They realised that we negotiated in good faith, and they helped us. And the last challenge, of course, was the Russia-Ukraine paras, which were very, very complex, very tough. That involved long meetings, many hours of meetings non-stop, almost 200 hours of negotiation. We came out with 15 different drafts, one after another. And finally, we had to do a number of bilaterals. So we did 200 bilaterals to understand every country’s red line. And then, late Friday night, we put it out and requested everybody to see it. We had many challenges then from Russia, because we had actually taken the Bali line. The New Delhi leader’s statement on Russia-Ukraine is much stronger than Bali. It talks about territorial acquisition, it talks about territorial integrity, it talks about sovereignty, it talks about political independence of states, and it talks about food measures from both sides, And use of “just and durable peace” is a terminology that’s very strong

So by Saturday morning, you knew that the deal was done? My partnership with the Brazilian and South African sherpas and later I brought in the Indonesian sherpa... it became a strong partnership of India, Indonesia, Brazil, and South Africa, and later, we called a meeting of the emerging markets. In the emerging market meetings, Mexico, Saudi, Turkey, Argentina, all of them supported us. So we thought we’d done a very balanced job and we pursued it to its rigorous end. We had a very good drafting team and were able to achieve success. And this is when on Saturday morning, we saw it was almost done.

Was there any point when you thought that it was off?Oh, about a minimum of 15 times. We thought, it’s not doable, we should give it up. In the last 24 hours, at least 10 times we thought it wouldn’t happen .At one stage because of G7; at another stage, China; then, Russia till the end. So at least 10 times. But we got everybody together. That’s important.

What helped India achieve the declaration? I think , first of all, if you have a strong political leader and it is his credibility, and that he’s a democratically elected leader, that has helped us to achieve this. Without that it would not have happened. The second is that the elevated stature of India as a country has helped us to achieve immense success because India’s developmental story is a very unique story. I think these are the two key factors.