May 3 2021 The G7 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting opened in London on Wednesday. This is the first face-to-face meeting of G7 representatives in nearly two years.
According to a statement issued by the British Foreign Office, the G7 foreign ministers’ meeting began with a working dinner on the 3rd, the next two days will include economic recovery after Coronavirus pandemic, climate change, vaccine cooperation, protection of women’s educational rights and interests.
British Foreign Secretary David Raab held bilateral meetings with U.S. Secretary of State John Blinken and Japanese Foreign Minister Mosumu Min earlier in the day. At a news conference after the meeting, Raab said he and Blinken discussed multilateral cooperation, free trade agreements, post-epidemic economic revitalization, as well as the withdrawal of Afghan troops and a comprehensive agreement on Iran’s nuclear program. The british and Japanese foreign ministers’ meeting focused on bilateral trade and security cooperation.
As the rotating presidency of this year’s G7, the UK invited the foreign ministers of Australia, South Korea, India, Brunei and South Africa to attend the foreign ministers’ meeting.
The foreign ministers’ meeting is seen as a warm-up for the G7 summit to be held in the UK in June. Analysts say the U.S. and Europe hope to use this as an opportunity to bridge the differences and rifts left by former U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration and reshape the G7’s influence.
The G7 is made up of the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan, and Russia joined in 1997 as the Group of Eight. Russia was excluded after the Ukraine crisis erupted in 2014.
