Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida will be in India for a two-day India-Japan Annual Summit that begins Saturday. This will be Kishida’s first visit to the country since he took charge of the office last year, and also his first meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The last India-Japan summit took place in 2018 in Tokyo.
His visit comes at a time when Ukraine is resisting a full-scale invasion by Russia that was launched on February 24. Tokyo is said to have revoked Moscow’s most-favoured nation status amid the attacks that have triggered global condemnation and punitive measures from across the world. It has also limited transations with Russia’s central banks.On the 14th edition of the India-Japan Summit, the foreign ministry in a statement on Thursday had said: “At the invitation of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of Japan H.E. Mr. Kishida Fumio will be undertaking an official visit to New Delhi from 19-20 March 2022 for the 14th India-Japan Annual Summit. The Summit would be the first meeting of the two leaders.”
“India and Japan have multi-faceted cooperation within the ambit of their ‘Special Strategic and Global Partnership’. The Summit will provide an opportunity for both sides to review and strengthen the bilateral cooperation in diverse areas as well as exchange views on regional and global issues of mutual interest so as to advance their partnership for peace, stability and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond,” it added.
Kishida’s predecessor Shinzo Abe had met PM Modi several times when he was in office.
