British PM Boris Johnson invites Modi for G7 meeting in June

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Sunday (January 17) invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the G7 meeting, slated to be held in the United Kingdom between June 13 and 15.

The UK has also sent out invitations to Australia and South Korea.

“The G7 Summit will be held in Carbis Bay, Cornwall on 11-13 June 2021. Prime Minister Boris Johnson will use the UK’s G7 Presidency to unite leading democracies to help the world fight, and then build back better from coronavirus and create a greener, more prosperous future. The UK has invited Australia, India and South Korea as guest countries to this year’s G7,” a statement read.

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The statement said Cornwall’s “stunning landscape is a perfect setting for world leaders to come together and discuss how to respond to global challenges like coronavirus and climate change”.

It stated that the G7 Summit will provide “the best of Cornish hospitality” for leaders, delegates and the media. “It will involve the whole of Cornwall, boosting local businesses and showcasing this unique part of the UK to the world,” the statement said.

Johnson said the G7 is “the most prominent grouping of democratic countries” and it “has long been the catalyst for decisive international action” to tackle challenging world issues. Johnson added: “From cancelling developing world debt to universal condemnation of Russia’s annexation of Crimea, the world has looked to the G7 to apply our shared values and diplomatic might to create a more open and prosperous planet.”

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Prime Minister Modi had earlier invited Johnson to be chief guest for the Republic Day celebrations. But Johnson had to cancel his trip citing the latest lockdown in the UK due to the detection of a new coronavirus strain. Johnson expressed “regret” at not being able to visit India, to which, according to government sources, Modi “conveyed his understanding of the exceptional situation and hoped that the UK would overcome Covid challenges successfully”.

The G7 Summit was deferred last year by former US President Donald Trump as he “didn’t feel that as a G7 it properly represents what’s going on in the world.”

In 2019, the 45th G7 summit, was held on August 24 to 26, at Biarritz in southwestern France, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi was invited to attend as a special guest of French President Emmanuel Macron.

G7 stands for ‘Group of Seven’, which includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. It was started in 1975 by leading economies of the time as an informal forum to discuss world issues.

The G7 has deliberated over issues such as the oil crashes of the 1970s, the economic changeover of ex-Soviet bloc nations, financial crises, terrorism, arms control, and drug trafficking.

The G7 was known as the ‘G8’ for several years after Russia joined in 1997. But Russia was expelled as a member in 2014 due to its annexation of the Crimea region of Ukraine, and thus G8 went back to being G7.