UK PM Johnson cancels trip to India due to coronavirus worries

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 19

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been unlucky for the second time this year in trying to visit India. Johnson’s forthcoming visit to India towards this month has been cancelled because of New Delhi’s preoccupation with the surge in Covid cases.

Johnson had to cancel his January 26 visit because Covid cases at that time had spiked alarmingly in the UK.

“In view of the prevailing Covid situation, it has been decided by mutual agreement that the PM of the UK will not visit India next week,” said the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).

The two sides will be holding a virtual meeting in the coming days to launch plans for a transformed India-UK relationship.

“Both leaders attach the highest importance to taking India-UK partnership to its fullest potential and propose to remain in close touch in this regard and look forward to an in-person meeting later in the year,” said the MEA spokesperson.

Reuters adds: India is enduring a second wave of the virus, with infections passing the 15 million mark, second only to the United States.

"(Indian Prime Minister) Narendra Modi and I have basically come to the conclusion that, very sadly, I won’t be able to go ahead with the trip," Johnson told reporters. "I do think it’s only sensible to postpone."

Relations with India are seen as a key component of both Britain's post-Brexit ambitions to reinvigorate trade with countries outside the European Union, and a diplomatic push to gain more influence in the Indo-Pacific region.

"Of course it will be frustrating, but we’ll try and replicate as much as we can remotely, and then look forward to doing it in person as and when circumstances allow, and hopefully before the COP (climate) summit in November, and hopefully we’ll get Narendra Modi over for the G7 in June," Johnson said.

Britain has invited India to attend the G7 summit it is hosting in June.