In the month of May Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to leave on a three-nation tour starting from Hiroshima, Japan for the G7 in-persons summit, then to Papua New Guinea for the India-Pacific Islands Cooperation Summit. He will also travel to Australia – Melbourne to attend the in-person QUAD Leaders Summit.
India has been either considered or invited for the G7 summit since 2019. Last year, Prime Minister Modi was in Schloss Elmau in the Bavarian Alps for the G7 Leaders Summit. Next week when Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida meets PM Modi he is expected to extend a formal invitation for the G7 summit which will be from May 20-21, 2023. This will be PM Modi’s fifth invite for the G7.
When did the PM receive the invite for the G7 summit?
The first such invite was extended by the French President Emannuel Macron in 2019 for the Biarritz summit. In 2020 former President of America Donald Trump was keen to invite India but the summit could not happen due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Former Prime Minister of the UK Boris Johnson had invited PM Modi for the G7 summit; however he could not go due to the second wave of COVID-19.
From Japan, though not officially announced PM Modi is also expected to visit Papua New Guinea for the Forum for India-Pacific Islands Cooperation summit (India Pacific summit) which is scheduled to take place on May 22.
Which islands form the Forum?
There are 14 Pacific Islands including Niue, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Fiji, Cook Islands, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, and Nauru.
This will be the third summit level meeting. The first was in 2014 and it took place in Fiji, the second was in 2015 and the location was in Jaipur.
India has been majorly involved in development cooperation in the Pacific Islands and the summit level meetings are for wider cooperation with the Island nations.
This is the first ever visit of PM Modi to the island nation Papua New Guinea which is the largest country in the Oceania region after Australia and India has been providing assistance – including humanitarian aid following a major earthquake
QUAD Summit in Australia
The last leg of the prime minister’s three nation tour will be Australia where he will attend the QUAD Leaders Summit and will meet the US President Joe Biden, Prime Minister of Japan Kishida and Australian PM Anthony Albanese.
Will there be a bilateral with the US President Biden; there is no confirmation on this. It has been reported earlier that the Australian PM Minister earlier this month has formally extended the invite for the summit. And at the joint presser in New Delhi, PM Modi thanked his Australian counterpart for inviting him for the QUAD Leaders’ Summit in May.