JOHANNESBURG (Kyodo) -- Foreign ministers of the Group of 20 countries on Friday could not issue a joint statement after discussing Russia's war in Ukraine and other key topics, with the rare absence of the top U.S. diplomat leaving room for China and Russia to expand their outreach to emerging economies.

South Africa, the first African country to assume the G20 presidency, instead released a summary of the discussions, saying the participants affirmed that "all parties in conflicts must comply with their obligations under international law, including international humanitarian law and international human rights law."

It added there was agreement to support all efforts toward a "just peace" in major conflicts, including those in Ukraine and Palestine.

The two-day meeting of the world's leading wealthy and developing countries took place in Johannesburg as U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has started negotiating with Russia toward ending the nearly three-year-old war in Ukraine.

Trump's false claim that Ukraine started the war and his recent characterization of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a "dictator" have raised eyebrows in many Western capitals.

So far, Ukraine has been sidelined from the U.S. administration's engagement with Russia, as have European countries.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio skipped the G20 meeting, accusing South Africa of "anti-Americanism," reflecting the Trump administration's lack of interest in multilateral frameworks.

In his speech on Friday, China's top diplomat Wang Yi stressed the importance of boosting the voices of developing countries in the international community and strengthening multilateral cooperation through frameworks such as the G20.

"We should seek common ground while shelving differences, refrain from division and confrontation, and oppose bloc confrontation," China's official news agency Xinhua quoted him as saying.