External Affairs Minister Jaishankar to visit Italy for G20 FMs meet

India's External Affairs minister Dr S Jaishankar will be in Italy's Matera on 29 June for the G20 Foreign minister's (FM) meet. Italy is the host of the G20 grouping this year and will hold the leader's summit in Rome on October 30 and 31.

Last year G20 under the chairmanship of Saudi Arabia held its meetings, including the leaders meet virtually amid the Covid pandemic. The G20 FMs meet will see the participation of FM of other countries as well. China, Russia, the US, UK, France, and others are part of the grouping and naturally, this will provide an occasion for several bilateral meetings as well.

If all FMs confirm the visit, this could be the first-ever in-person multilateral meet of FM of 20 countries amid a pandemic. COVID crisis had impacted the in-person meeting, considered key in diplomacy. Before this, June saw in-person G7 FMs meet, and guest countries with EAM Jaishankar visiting London.

At the last year's G20 FMs meet, India's EAM had proposed developing global standards on the movement of people. It had three main elements which called for standards on testing procedures and universal acceptability of test results, quarantine procedures.

EAM had last visited Rome in 2019 and took part in the fifth edition of the Mediterranean Dialogues. The conference was attended by more than 40 world leaders.