Japan wants the meeting of the G7 foreign ministers to be held in 2023 in Nagano

As reported by Kyodo NewsJapan is planning to hold a meeting of industrialized G7 foreign ministers in a tourist city in central Japan’s Nagano prefecture in April next year, ahead of the group’s scheduled summit in Hiroshima in May.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s government is also planning to hold a meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors in May in Niigata, a coastal city facing the Sea of ​​Japan northwest of Tokyo, according to the sources.

The government is expected to finalize the plans and announce them soon, the sources added.

The planned talks in Karuizawa, in Nagano, will pave the way for the G7 summit in Hiroshima, where Kishida intends to send a strong message about achieving “a world without nuclear weapons”, since Russia has threatened to use nuclear weapons in its war against Ukraine.

The government plans to choose Karuizawa given its experience hosting large-scale international conferences, including a meeting of environment and energy ministers of the Group of 20 major economies in 2019, and the G7 transport ministers meeting in 2016, according to the sources.

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Known as a summer resort with abundant accommodation, the city also has the advantage of being accessible from Tokyo, which is just over an hour away by bullet train.

Niigata also hosted the G20 agriculture ministers’ meeting in 2019 and the G7 in 2016.

At a closing press conference for the G7 leaders’ talks in Germany in late June, Kishida, elected from a Hiroshima constituency, said that next year’s summit, chaired by Japan, would take place in the city. in western Japan, one of two cities atomically bombed in World War II.

The talks planned in Karuizawa, in Nagano, will pave the way for the G7 summit in Hiroshima

At the planned foreign ministers’ meeting in Karuizawa, top diplomats from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States, as well as the European Union, are expected to discuss Russia’s threat to use nuclear weapons. in its war against Ukraine and China’s intensifying military activities in the Pacific, among other issues, the sources said.

In Japan, 22 municipalities have applied to host the G7 ministerial meetings to be held in the country next year.

Initially, the government studied the possibility of holding the ministerial meeting in Nara, an old Japanese capital that is home to some World Cultural Heritage sites. However, the plans were abandoned for security reasons following the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in July in the western city, according to the sources.

Japan held a meeting of G7 foreign ministers in Kyoto in 2008 and in Hiroshima in 2016, while also hosting a G7 summit in each of those years.