New Delhi: Japanese PM Fumio Kishida’s visit to India will provide an opportunity for the two countries to discuss how the G20 and G7 can work together to handle critical global issues including food and health security, energy transition and economic security , sources said ahead of his arrival on Monday. India and Japan currently chair the G20 and G7 respectively.
Kishida will hope to more than make up for the absence of his foreign minister, Yoshimasa Hayashi, at the G20 foreign ministers’ meeting in India earlier this month.
While the issue of Ukraine will again figure prominently on the agenda of Kishida’s meeting with his counterpart Narendra Modi, the focus will also be on enhancing security and defense cooperation and working towards a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific.
Kishida hosted German Chancellor Olaf Scholz for a bilateral summit on Saturday, in which both leaders welcomed the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin. Although both India and the US are not members of the court, the ICC warrant is unlikely to come in the way of Putin’s participation in the G20 and SCO summits, which India will host later this year.
“Defence and security cooperation has emerged as one of the most important pillars of our special strategic and global partnership and a key factor in ensuring peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region,” a source said. Kishida is expected to talk about ways to further expand Japan’s free and open Indo-Pacific policy. “A milestone was the successful conduct of the first fighter jet exercise ‘Veer Guardian’ between our two countries in Japan in January 2023,” the official said.