UK invites India for the G7 Foreign Ministers' meeting

The United Kingdom has officially announced that the first in-person G7 Foreign and Development Ministers' meeting will be held in Central London from May 3 to 5.

New Delhi:Britain which hosts the G7 Foreign and Development Ministers' meeting next month, has invited India, along with Australia, South Korea, South Africa, and the Secretary-General of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

UK’s Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab announced in Parliament that the Foreign and Development Ministers Meeting would take place in Central London from May 3-5.

Dominic Raab said, "The meeting of G7 Foreign and Development Ministers next month is an opportunity to show how the world’s biggest democracies work together to ensure equitable access to vaccines, build back better from the pandemic, support girls in the poorest countries get a good quality education and agree on ambitious action to tackle climate change."

The main agenda of the meeting will be on tackling the COVID pandemic and the climate crisis, as the UK will also host the United Nations Climate Change Conference later this year.

The seven G7 countries are Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US. Represented jointly by the President of the European Council and the President of the European Commission, the EU participates in all discussions as a guest.

This will be the first in-person G7 meet to take place in over 2 years and India has been invited to the 47th G7 summit that will take place at the Carbis Bay in Cornwall, UK from 11th to 13th June. Notably, India has been regularly invited to the G7 summit since 2019, first by France, then by the United States in 2020 and now by the United Kingdom.

The UK attaches great importance to India and over the years the ties between the two countries have deepened across various sectors.

UK's Prime Minister Boris Johnson who was slated to visit India from April 25, will now have to cancel his trip given the COVID-19 situation. The two sides will be holding a virtual meeting in the coming days to launch plans for a transformed India-UK relationship.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson had said in March that he will discuss India-UK’s shared vision for a sustainable future and other issues with Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his upcoming visit to India.

It is worth mentioning that Britain Prime Minister Johnson cancelled his Republic day visit to New Delhi this year in January, following an increase in the number of Covid-19 cases.