After Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and UK PM Boris Johnson, it is Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov whose scheduled visit to India later this month has been postponed due to the ongoing Covid-19 crisis.
Borisov was to visit here for the India-Russia intergovernmental commission for trade, economic, cultural, and scientific cooperation. His postponement of the visit is attributed to the Covid-19 surge in India.
Earlier, Suga, who too was scheduled to arrive here in the last week of April, had to postpone his plans to focus on handling the recent surge in coronavirus cases in Japan.
The Japanese government is considering a state of emergency for Tokyo and Osaka as the number of new coronavirus cases increase.
According to Kyodo News, the Japanese government is considering placing Tokyo and three western prefectures of Osaka, Kyoto and Hyogo under a state of emergency from Sunday to May 11, covering the country’s upcoming string of holidays, in an attempt to curb surging COVID-19 infections.
Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga is set to finalise the decision at a task force meeting on Friday, as a resurgence of infections puts pressure on the medical system with just three months until the Tokyo Olympics kick off, it said..
For his part, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson cancelled his visit next week in view of the alarming Covid-19 situation in India. He was scheduled to arrive on April 25. He will now hold a Rs virtual’ dialogue with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the coming days.
This is the second time that the British Prime Minister’s visit was cancelled. He was invited as the Chief Guest for this year’s Republic Day parade. However, he postponed his visit due to the outbreak of corona in the UK then.
Giving details of the latest postponement, the ministry of external affairs said here on Monday Johnson will not visit India next week in view of the coronavirus pandemic. The ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said the decision was taken as per mutual agreement by both sides.