TOKYO: Japan will pick by June this year the venue of the 2023 summit of the Group of Seven major powers it will host, Prime Minister KISHIDA Fumio said Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the Foreign Ministry announced the establishment of a preparatory office for the G-7 meeting, which will bring together leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United States and the European Union.

The cities of Nagoya, Hiroshima and Fukuoka have expressed their intent to host the gathering. The government is expected to choose mainly from among the three.

“We’ll make a judgment after weighing up the strong points of various cities,” Kishida said on television.

Holding a G-7 summit in Hiroshima would bear significance in that it would allow G-7 leaders to directly feel the realities of the damage the city sustained from the 1945 U.S. atomic bomb attack, he said.

But whether the leaders should visit an atomic-bombed city may be controversial in some countries, he added.

Kishida, a member of the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of Japan’s parliament, represents a constituency in Hiroshima.

JIJI Press