G7 summit updates: Ukraine casts shadow over Hiroshima meeting

Survivors of the US nuclear bombing of Hiroshima in Japan are hoping their tragic stories will have a lasting impact on the G7 leaders who have gathered in the city to discuss modern day issues of war and peace.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz says the G7 countries remain committed to providing economic and military support to Ukraine.

“We have once again assured that we will give Ukraine the necessary support for as long as that is required,” Scholz told journalists after the first day of the summit.

A fair peace is only possible if Russia realises that it must end this war and withdraw its troops, he said.

US President Joe Biden has informed G7 leaders that Washington will support a joint effort with allies to train Ukrainian pilots on F-16 fighter jets, CNN has reported, citing a senior US administration official.

G7 leaders have called for a “world without nuclear weapons”, urging Russia, Iran, China and North Korea to cease nuclear escalation and embrace non-proliferation, a statement released by the White House has shown.

Russia’s nuclear rhetoric and stated intent to deploy nuclear weapons in Belarus “are dangerous and unacceptable,” and Russia should return to full implementation of New START treaty, the leaders said in the statement.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Hiroshima, India’s foreign ministry has said, their first meeting since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

News of the meeting came hours after Modi left New Delhi for Hiroshima, where he will be the most Russia-friendly of global leaders assembled for a summit.

India is invited to the summit as a guest and Modi’s meeting with Zelenskyy is set for Saturday evening, the ministry said.

China’s rapidly growing nuclear arsenal is a “concern to global and regional stability”, G7 leaders have said.

“China’s accelerating build-up of its nuclear arsenal without transparency nor meaningful dialogue poses a concern to global and regional stability,” the group said in a statement that also condemned Russia’s “irresponsible nuclear rhetoric”.

Leaders from seven of the world’s industrial powers – the Group of Seven (G7) – are meeting in Hiroshima, Japan. It’s a sobering stage – 77 years ago, the United States dropped the first of two atomic bombs on Hiroshima, and today, the threat of nuclear war is at its highest in years.

This year’s G7 agenda will be focused on continued financial support for Ukraine and creating a joint message against its invader, Russia. But will there be time or money at the summit in Hiroshima to get the world closer to peace?

The Biden administration has added 71 companies to a trade blacklist for supporting Russia.

The US Department of Commerce’s action targets support for Russia’s military and expands the scope of export controls on Russia and Belarus. The blacklist includes 69 Russian entities, one from Armenia and one from Kyrgyzstan.

The new export controls target oil and gas projects in Russia and Belarus, Commerce said. Other companies include aircraft repair and parts production plants, gunpowder, tractor and car factories, shipyards and engineering centres in Russia.

President Yoon Suk Yeol has met some South Korean survivors of the 1945 atomic bombing in the Japanese city of Hiroshima on the sidelines of a G7 summit.

The meeting comes as Yoon pushes to close a chapter on historic feuds that have dominated ties with Tokyo for decades.

“As president, I deeply apologise that your homeland could not be there while you were suffering from pain and sadness,” Yoon said at the meeting.

Yoon is the first South Korean president to meet the survivors, a presidential spokesperson said.

As many as 100,000 Koreans suffered during the US bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, half of them dying that year while about 43,000 returned to the South and 2,000 went to the North, the Korea Atomic Bombs Victim Association says.

Leaders of the G7 “remain deeply concerned about Iran’s unabated escalation of its nuclear programme”, according to a draft version of their communique seen by the Reuters news agency.

“We reiterate our clear determination that Iran must never develop a nuclear weapon,” said the draft at the start of a three-day summit in the Japanese city of Hiroshima.

“We express our grave concern regarding Iran’s continued destabilising activities, including the transfer of missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVS) and related technologies to state and non-state actors,” the draft read.

The final version of the communique is expected to be released on Sunday.

US President Biden will meet on Saturday with leaders of the so-called Quad group, including India, Australia and Japan, the White House revealed.

Biden postponed his trip to Australia to return to Washington amid continuing negotiations over the raising the US debt limit.

The leaders of seven countries including The Netherlands and Chile have said G7 nations must take the lead in phasing out fossil fuels.

In a letter to G7 leaders, dated May 18 and seen by Reuters news agency, presidents and prime ministers from seven nations urged them to lead the push for a fossil fuel phaseout deal.

“We must bring the fossil fuel era to an end and phase out fossil fuels. We call on you to take the lead and work with us to agree this at COP28,” the letter said, referring to this year’s COP28 climate summit, which begins on November 30 in Dubai.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s plane has arrived in Japan.

While India is not a member of the G7, Japanese Prime Minster Fumio Kishida has invited India, South Korea, Brazil and Australia to the gathering in an effort to boost cooperation among developing and middle-power countries.

The Times of India has reported that Indian officials are exploring the possibility of a bilateral meeting between Modi and Ukranian President Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the summit.

Landed in Hiroshima to join the G7 Summit proceedings. Will also be having bilateral meetings with various world leaders. pic.twitter.com/zQtSZUpd45

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) May 19, 2023

G7 summit organisers have revealed the menu from the G7 leaders’ working lunch earlier this afternoon. Leaders were treated to a four-course meal of French cuisine at the Grand Prince Hotel Hiroshima.

For the appetiser, the attendees dined on marinated salmon, with live scallop confit and asparagus charlotte with smoked cream and edible flowers. That was followed by acqua pazza of Japanese rockfish and mussels with lemon and olives in a light soup.

For the mains, the G7 leaders enjoyed chicken ballotine stuffed with shrimp scampi, braised thigh and mushroom tourte, roasted bamboo shoots and fava beans, with supreme sauce. Desert was lemon, honey, and semifreddo citrus cream with sake lees. The meal was served with lemon confit baguettes, English-style buns, wine walnut bread and locally produced wine and sake.

The menu was prepared by Shimoi Kazuhik, corporate executive chef at Seibu Prince Hotels Worldwide, and was made with ingredients from across Hiroshima prefecture.

China has pushed back on concerns raised by G7 nations about the need to “decouple” from the world’s second-largest economy.

“The world cannot decouple and does not need de-risking with China as the target,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin in Beijing.

Pointing to its huge contribution to the growth of the global economy, he said China brings opportunities, not challenges.

This weekend’s G7 leaders’ summit in Hiroshima will be one of multifaceted significance.

Amid the global energy crisis, Russia’s continuing war on Ukraine and the closing window of opportunity to act on climate change, the heads of governments of Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States will gather at the site where the world’s first atomic bomb was weaponised.

It is undoubtedly a dramatic background against which world leaders will deliberate on issues that affect the collective future of our people and our planet.

Read more here.

Al Jazeera’s Rob McBride, reporting from Hiroshima, says speculation continues on whether Ukrainian President Zelenskyy will be attending the G7 summit in person.

“It was originally anticipated that he was only going to be making a video address via a remote connection. But then it was widely reported … that he would actually be making the journey to attend in person to press the case for more support for his country,” he added.

“Reports from Ukraine itself seem to indicate that it is back to the original plan of just a remote appearance via video link.”

The leaders of the wealthy G7 industrial democracies have once again called on Russia to completely withdraw its troops from Ukraine.

“Russia started this war and can end this war,” said a statement.

“We underline that a just peace cannot be realized without the complete and unconditional withdrawal of Russian troops and military equipment, and this must be included in any call for peace.”

A Pacific Islands leader called on the United States and China to not bring “adversarial competition” to the region, as the rival powers intensify their bids for influence.

Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown – invited to represent the region at the G7 summit in Hiroshima – said increased superpower interest in the Pacific was welcome, but could not come at any cost.

“I think it’s important to understand that what our development partners may see as areas of national security, are not necessarily what we see as national security priorities,” he said. “For us, national security priorities are economic security, they are climate security.”

Brown said he would call on leaders of wealthy G7 democracies to help combat urgent climate challenges. “The Pacific Island countries are at the forefront of the impacts of climate change, a large proportion of it caused by the G7 countries.”

Leaders from the Group of Seven nations agreed to new sanctions they said would “starve Russia of G7 technology, industrial equipment and services that support its war machine”.

The measures, announced at the summit in Hiroshima, include restrictions on exports of items “critical to Russia on the battlefield”, as well as ones targeting entities accused of moving material to the front for Moscow.

“It looked like a bright orange light, like the first sunrise of the year,” says Sadae Kasaoka, remembering the moment when the first nuclear bomb to ever be used was dropped by the United States on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.

Now 90, she was 12 years old that August day at the tail end of World War II, but she still remembers it vividly.

Sadae was home alone with her grandmother. When the blast hit, she was pushed against the wall by the massive force of the explosion and covered in broken glass. The two then fled into an air raid shelter for safety.

Read more here

Britain has unveiled new sanctions against Russia targeting imports of diamonds, minerals, and advanced military technology in a bid to choke Moscow’s ability to fund the war in Ukraine.

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told Sky News his “straightforward” message for Russian President Vladimir Putin was: “We’re not going away.”

Russia’s diamond trade is estimated to be worth $4bn to $5bn a year, netting the Kremlin much-needed tax revenues.

“One of the topics of conversation I’ll be having and have been having with my fellow leaders is about the longer term security agreements … for Ukraine to deter future Russian aggression,” Sunak said.

The G7 as a whole is expected to work to tighten existing sanctions, close loopholes, squeeze Moscow’s access to the international financial system, and commit to keeping Russian assets frozen until the end of the war in Ukraine.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who represents Hiroshima in parliament, wants nuclear disarmament to be a major focus of G7 discussions.

The visit by world leaders to Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park – dedicated to preserving reminders of August 6, 1945, when a US B-29 dropped an atomic bomb over the city – provided a striking backdrop to the start of the summit. An estimated 140,000 people were killed in the attack, and a fast-dwindling number of now-elderly survivors have ensured that Hiroshima has become synonymous with anti-nuclear peace efforts.

“Honestly, I have big doubts if Mr Kishida, who is pursuing a military buildup and seeking to revise the pacifist constitution, can really discuss nuclear disarmament,” said Sueichi Kido, an 83-year-old “hibakusha”, or survivor, of the Nagasaki explosion. “But because they are meeting in Hiroshima I do have a sliver of hope that they will have positive talks and make a tiny step toward nuclear disarmament.”

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Japanese Red Cross are urging the members of the G7 to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

On Friday morning, G7 leaders paid their respects at the memorial to those killed as a result of the bombing of Hiroshima.

Medical and humanitarian workers from the ICRC and Japanese Red Cross were among those who tried to help the dying and injured after the bomb was dropped in 1945, in what the organisation described as “near impossible” conditions.

“For the sake of the survival of humanity, we must free the world of weapons that threaten catastrophic humanitarian consequences and irreversible harm,” the two organisations said in a joint statement. “We cannot allow a repetition of this dark part of our past; we owe it to the survivors – the hibakusha – to ensure that the horrors they suffered are never repeated.”

Around the world, some 68 states have ratified the treaty, and 27 more have signed it. No G7 members have done so.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will join the Group of Seven summit in person on Sunday, a top official confirmed.

Zelenskyy will be making his furthest trip from of his war-torn country as leaders are set to unveil new sanctions on Russia for its invasion.

Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, confirmed on national television that Zelenskyy would attend the summit.

“We were sure that our president would be where Ukraine needed him, in any part of the world, to solve the issue of stability of our country,” Danilov said. “There will be very important matters decided there, so physical presence is a crucial thing to defend our interests”.