Tokyo, 18 February, /AJMEDIA/
The foreign ministers of the Group of Seven industrialized nations met in Germany on Saturday to reaffirm their continuing support for Ukraine ahead of marking one year since Russia invaded its neighbor.
The meeting, held on the sidelines of an international security conference in the southern German city of Munich, is the first in-person foreign ministerial talks to be chaired by Japan since the Asian nation assumed this year’s rotating G-7 presidency.
“With all the G-7 members coming together, we hope to show our unwavering unity” as one year is about to pass since Russia launched its invasion, according to the Japanese Foreign Ministry.
Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States, plus the European Union are also expected to renew their resolve to continue to impose “powerful” sanctions against Russia to pressure Moscow to end the war, the ministry said.
Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi has said he will invite his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba to the meeting.
After the talks, a statement is expected to be released, Japanese government officials said.
Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine on Feb. 24 last year, the G-7 members, along with other like-minded nations, have imposed a raft of economic sanctions on Russia, such as freezing assets belonging to President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s central bank, revocation of the country’s “most-favored nation” trade status, and export bans of products with cutting-edge technologies.
The G-7 top diplomats will also likely discuss China amid concerns over Beijing’s assertive military activities in the Indo-Pacific region, and North Korea’s missile and nuclear programs, according to the officials.
U.S.-China tensions have grown after a Chinese spy balloon flew over the United States before being shot down by the military. Beijing has said the balloon was used for meteorological research and deviated far from its intended course.
China, in turn, argued that U.S. balloons have illegally flown over its airspace more than 10 times in the past year.
During his two-day stay in Germany from Friday, Hayashi plans to hold brief talks with Wang Yi, China’s top foreign policy official, according to Japanese government sources.
Hayashi will also likely separately meet his South Korean counterpart Park Jin, with the agenda set to include wartime labor, an issue that has strained the bilateral ties.
The Japanese minister will attend a session of the three-day Munich Security Conference through Sunday before returning to Japan.
The G-7 countries also plan to hold an online meeting of their leaders next Friday, on the first anniversary of the start of the Russian war in Ukraine, according to the sources.
