Kananaskis, Alberta, June 18, (dpa/GNA) – The Group of Seven (G7) summit begins a final day of deliberations in Canada on Tuesday, but without a key player: US President Donald Trump.
On Monday evening, Trump’s spokeswoman announced that the US president was returning to Washington early from the Canadian Rocky Mountain resort, due to the conflict between Iran and Israel.
Israel launched attacks on Iran on Friday and retaliatory strikes between the two enemies since, have threatened to ignite a wider conflagration across the entire region.
Trump’s early departure is a setback for the G7, as the meeting was seen as a test of unity in the face of major international problems.
The summit was due to address Russia’s ongoing war on Ukraine, in a session attended by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday. Zelensky had also planned to hold bilateral talks with Trump.
Trump made it clear that he did not in any case plan to join a joint initiative for further sanctions against Moscow. He suggested that the Europeans could take the lead and expressed scepticism about US sanctions.
The G7 leaders also plan to discuss energy security on Tuesday with partner countries attending the summit as guests, including: Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and South Korean President Lee Jae Myung.
Alongside the host Canada, the G7 consists of the US, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Japan – and the European Union.
Russia was excluded from the group – previously the G8 – after it annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014. That left the remaining members united in their values as Western democracies, though significant differences have emerged between the US and the others since Trump’s return to power.
GNA