Lula and other leaders invited by the G7 participate in the Hiroshima summit

This Saturday, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva joined the G7 leaders’ summit being held in the city of Hiroshima, Japan, along with the leaders of India, Indonesia and Vietnam, other countries invited to the event.

Lula was received by the Japanese Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida, in the official welcoming ceremony that took place from 2:30 pm (local time, Saturday morning in Brazil) at the Grand Prince Hotel, in Hiroshima, headquarters of the Group of Seven summit which will run until Sunday. The president, accompanied by first lady Janja Lula da Silva, posed smiling for photos before participating in the first session of the summit in which the guest leaders would be present.

In addition to Lula, who will assume the rotating presidency of the G20 next year, the meeting was attended by the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, who currently heads this international forum; and the Indonesian president, Joko Widodo, who heads the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). They are also joined by the representatives of Comoros and the Cook Islands, who in turn chair the African Union and the Pacific Islands Forum, as well as those of Australia and South Korea.

In this expanded G7 session with invited countries, development, food security and energy will be discussed, while another round of discussions this Saturday will deal with sustainability and climate change. The Japanese prime minister expressed his willingness to address the “global challenges” together with this group of countries called the “global south”, with a view to taking into account their opinions and seeking more constructive joint solutions. It is expected that, in addition to the mentioned issues, the G7 will address the situation of the war in Ukraine with the invited countries, in discussions which will also take part in the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky.

Taking advantage of his presence in Hiroshima, Lula had bilateral meetings with Kishida, Widodo and with the Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese; moreover, he intends to meet, on the sidelines of the summit, with Modi; with French President Emmanuel Macron; and with the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz.