Nearly 60 Foreign Ministers of the world including External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will take part in the European Union’s (EU’s) second Indo-Pacific ministerial forum hosted by Sweden on May 13.
It will be co-chaired by EU High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, and Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Tobias Billstrom.
The participating ministers are from the Indo-Pacific region and the EU along with representatives of Indo-Pacific regional organisations and other partners, sources said here on Wednesday. China is not likely to take part as it has all along criticized the Indo-Pacific framework. Moreover, it claims the formation of Quad including India, US, Australia and Japan will lead to militarization of the Indo-Pacific.
Incidentally, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will participate in the Quad summit in Australia on May 24 along with US President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
The high-profile meet in Sweden will see three roundtable sessions on topics like ‘Building more sustainable and inclusive prosperity together’, ‘Pursuing green opportunities and overcoming global challenges in cooperation’ and ‘Facing jointly the evolving security landscape in the Indo-Pacific.’ The first ministerial forum took place in February in Paris last year.
