New Delhi: A plan to hold the next annual India-Japan summit in Assam has been shelved due to Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s tight schedule and logistical issues, people familiar with the matter said Tuesday.
The summit will now take place in New Delhi, they said.
Takaichi is set to visit India from July 1 to 3, which will be her first trip to the country after becoming prime minister.
The Indian side had made initial preparations to hold the summit in Guwahati in line with Japan’s focus on boosting its engagement with the Northeastern region.
Given PM Takaichi’s domestic commitments, including an ongoing session of the Japanese parliament, the window between her proposed arrival in India and her departure is quite tight, said one of the people cited above.
Because of this and the additional logistical issues connected to a visit outside the capital, the summit is now likely to be held in New Delhi.
This will also accommodate certain programming elements that both sides are keen on to boost bilateral ties, the people said.
The annual summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his then Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe was cancelled in December 2019 in Guwahati in the wake of massive protests rocking the Assam city over the amended citizenship law.
In August last year, PM Modi had travelled to Japan for the annual summit.
Following the summit, Japan set an investment target of 10 trillion yen (approx Rs 60,000 crore) in India over a decade.
The two sides also sealed a raft of big-ticket pacts including a framework for defence ties and a 10-year roadmap to largely boost economic partnership.
