Japanese PM Sanai Takaichi’s Guwahati visit cancelled, meetings will be hosted in Delhi

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi will not visit Guwahati from July 1-3, as was planned earlier. She will hold her interactions in Delhi because of the “tight” schedule of her visit and other logistical issues, The Hindu has learnt. The Guwahati part of her visit was earlier planned as the centrepiece of the tour, as Japan reportedly wanted to highlight the importance of India’s northeast in Japan’s plans for South and Southeast Asia and the Indo-Pacific initiative.

“Given PM Takaichi’s domestic commitments, including an ongoing session of the Diet (Japanese Parliament), the window between her proposed arrival in India and her departure is quite tight. In view of this and the additional logistical issues connected to a visit outside the capital, the visit is now likely to be held in Delhi,” The Hindu was told by a source familiar with the plans.

Earlier in 2019, the late Japanese PM Shinzo Abe too was expected to visit Assam for a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi when the event had to be cancelled because of protests related to the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

Sources said that the meetings that were to be held in Guwahati will now be held in New Delhi when Ms. Takaichi arrives on July 1-3, which will be her first official visit. Earlier, Horii Iwao, State Minister for Foreign Affairs, visited Meghalaya in February this year and described the northeastern region as the zone of convergence between “India’s Act East Policy and Japan’s FOIP (Free and Open Indo-Pacific) initiative.

New Delhi hosted Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi in the last week of May when the two sides reiterated their commitment to the Indo-Pacific.