The UK is hosting the first face-to-face gathering of the G7 foreign ministers in two years, with the Group of Seven meeting on Tuesday at Lancaster House in London, with Covid-19 protocols in place.
As foreign ministers from the G7 group arrived in masks at the venue on Tuesday, they traded traditional handshakes with UK Foreign Minister Dominic Raab for an elbow or forearm “bump,” underscoring the ongoing threat of the Covid-19 crisis.
The event will “bring together some of the world’s leading democracies for talks and decisive action on the most critical global issues,” the British Foreign Office said in a statement.
The G7 group of industrialized nations includes the UK, US, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the EU. This year, the UK also extended invitations to India, Australia, South Africa, South Korea and Brunei.
Topics on the ministers’ agenda include relations with Russia, China, and Iran, the coup in Myanmar, the war in Syria and the situations in Libya, Ethiopia, Somalia, the Sahel and Western Balkans, according to the Foreign Office.
