Leaders gather in Japan for G7 summit amidst tight security

By dpa correspondents I Thursday, May 18, 2023

 

JAPAN – US President Joe Biden arrived in Japan on Thursday ahead of the Group of Seven (G7) summit of leading democratic industrial nations.

Biden’s plane touched down at a military airport to the south of the host city, Hiroshima, in southern Japan. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz also arrived on Thursday, before the official start of talks on Friday.

In addition to the United States and Germany, the G7 includes France, Italy, Britain, Japan and Canada. European Union leaders will also be at the meeting. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky may himself travel to Japan for the summit, according to a Japanese media report.

Ukrainian government official Ihor Dzhokova told the Japanese news agency Kyodo on Thursday that the Ukrainian president would “carefully monitor the situation on the battlefield and then make a final decision.”

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida had previously invited Zelensky to attend the G7 online.
The war in Ukraine, the state of the global economy, denuclearization, and the West’s relationship with China are set to top the agenda of the leaders’ discussions.

The talks are being accompanied by extensive security measures. According to the police, some 24,000 security personnel from all over Japan are on duty during the meeting, which runs until Sunday.

The Peace Memorial Park, which the heads of state and government are visiting for the opening ceremony, has been cordoned off with a 2-metre-high fence.

Access to the atomic bomb dome is also blocked. The burnt-out building was damaged when the US dropped an atomic bomb on the city in 1945 at the end of World War II, and is now a symbol of peace and a testament to the horror of nuclear weapons.

Scholz said on Thursday that he expected the summit to send a clear signal against the use of nuclear weapons. “This is a very symbolic place here. The nuclear catastrophe that was experienced here is a reminder to all of us that we must ensure that nuclear weapons are never used.”
Boats were patrolling up and down the river around the Peace Park on Thursday. Some 140 schools were closed in the face of severe traffic restrictions.

The tightened security measures come against the backdrop of a recent attack on Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, in which he was unharmed. His predecessor Shinzo Abe had been shot dead at an election rally a few months earlier.