Prime Minister Narendra Modi says he will attend G7 summit in Canada

Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on Friday that he will attend the upcoming meeting of the Group of Seven, or G7, countries, following an invitation from his Canadian counterpart, Mark Carney, who is hosting the summit.

The G7 summit, which brings together the heads of France, Britain, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States, is being held this year in Kananaskis in the Canadian province of Alberta from June 15 to 17.

“As vibrant democracies bound by deep people-to-people ties, India and Canada will work together with renewed vigour, guided by mutual respect and shared interests,” Modi said in a post on X. “Look forward to our meeting at the summit.”

This came days after reports claimed that the prime minister was unlikely to attend the summit this year amid diplomatic tensions between New Delhi and Ottawa.

On Tuesday, the Congress criticised the Narendra Modi-led government, claiming that India not being invited to the G7 summit was yet another “major diplomatic bungle”.

Party leader Jairam Ramesh said that Indian prime ministers had regularly attended the summit.

“Before 2014, G7 was actually G8 for many years and had included Russia,” Ramesh said in a social media post. “Dr Manmohan Singh would be invited for G8 Summits where his voice would be heard.”

He added: “For the first time in six years, ‘Vishwaguru’ will not be in attendance at the Canada summi. Whatever spin may be given, the fact remains that this is yet another big diplomatic bungle.”

Ties between India and Canada have been strained since September 2023, when Canada’s former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told his country’s parliament that Canadian intelligence agencies were actively pursuing “credible allegations” tying agents of the Indian government to the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar near Vancouver.

Nijjar was a supporter of Khalistan, an independent Sikh nation sought by some groups. He was the head of the Khalistan Tiger Force, which is designated a terrorist outfit in India. India rejected Trudeau’s allegations as “absurd and motivated”.

After extending an invitation to Modi, Carney was facing criticism in his country, The Guardian reported.

Carney has, however, defended the move, saying it was important to invite the Indian prime minister, considering the country was the “fifth largest economy in the world, the most populous country in the world and central to supply chains”.

Carney was elected as the country’s prime minister in March, when he replaced Trudeau, who said in January that he would resign as the leader of the party and therefore as the prime minister.

During his poll campaign, earlier this year, Carney had said that his government would look to diversify Canada’s trading relationships with “like-minded countries” and that “there are opportunities to rebuild the relationship with India”.

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