ANKARA

South Africa will hand over the G20 presidency to the US “at an appropriate level,” the foreign minister said Saturday.

A row marked the relations between the two countries following US President Donald Trump’s decision not to attend the G20 leaders’ summit in Johannesburg on Nov. 22-23.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa told a news conference Thursday that there could be a “change of mind” from the US side and that discussions were underway, a claim that was immediately denied by the White House.

The summit kicked off Saturday without a US presence, despite the country being South Africa’s successor in the G20 presidency, which normally requires a handover ceremony.

South Africa’s Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola told a news conference on the sidelines of the summit that the US wanted to implement the handover through the charge d’affaires of its embassy in South Africa.

He stressed that the South African foreign ministry (Department of International Relations & Cooperation, or DIRCO) wants to “differentiate between the handover and the deliberations that are currently happening” at the summit that many leaders and their appropriately-designated officials attended.

Lamola explained that the handover must happen at the head of state level, or at least a minister who “is properly designated by the president of the United States of America.”

“So now that they have assigned a charge, we’ve said DIRCO has equivalent officials of the charge, hence … we will do the handover… at DIRCO offices anytime from Monday,” he announced.

Lamola added that this “cannot in anyway strain relations,” since it will be done at an appropriate level.

“We will accord them the equivalent respect by assuring that the person … who does the handover is an appropriate, equal, equivalent of the charge, he said.

The only thing we said is that our president cannot hand over to a charge (d'affaires) in the leaders’ summit attended by so many heads of state.”

Earlier this month, Trump announced that he would not send an American official to Johannesburg for the meeting, accusing South Africa of “human rights abuses” against the white Afrikaner population – claims the South African government has repeatedly rejected as unfounded.

Relations between Washington and Pretoria have plunged to their lowest over disagreements on both foreign and domestic policies.

Established in 1999, the G20 comprises 19 countries and two regional bodies – the EU and the African Union.