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Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says he will select the site for the 2016 G7 summit in Japan by early June. Abe told reporters that the venue will be decided before he attends this year's G7 summit in Germany in June, NTV reported.
Seven cities have indicated their interest in hosting the summit -- Hiroshima, Kobe, Nagoya, Sendai, Niigata, Karuizawa and Hamamatsu.
If Abe is still in office, it will his first opportunity to act as host and chairperson for a G7 summit.
Sendai Mayor Emiko Okuyama said that hosting the summit would give a boost to reconstruction efforts in the prefecture which was hit hard by the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami. In its application to host the summit, Sendai said the main venue for the gathering of world leaders would be the Sendai International Center.
Meanwhile, Hiroshima is keen to host the summit because U.S. President Barack Obama would visit the city, and become the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima -- a long-term goal of both the city government and anti-nuclear peace activists.
Abe said the final decision will be based on the candidate cities' accommodation and convention facilities, access and security factors.
© Japan Today
7 Comments
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Kaerimashita
Jeez, this is taking an awful long time. nice to see how decisive honest Abe can be.
liarsnfools
Abe Shinzo will choose Hiroshima because this is his only chance to get Obama to express remorse meaning that Japan was more a victim than a perpetrator of war.
Alex80
I think Abe won't choose Hiroshima. First: there's no way that an American president will apologize for Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Abe knows it, and he will avoid to put Obama in the embarassing situation to be able to express remorse for those war crimes, since to the US they are not war crimes in the first place. Second: an anti-nuclear speech made by the G7 is against Abe's pro-nuclear agenda, and G7 pro-nuclear agenda overall. Germany and Italy are the only two countries that left nuclear energy (Italy already did it, Germany is planning to do it) but their position is irrelevant, since both of them have few and old reactors, and use nuclear energy produced anyway, bought mainly from France, a country both with nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons.
toshiko
Early June? Probably Kyoto and Nara type cities in Japan. About that time, Hiroshima and Nagasaki begin crowded toursism season and kind of hard to have enough hotel rooms for G7 crowd and medias. But Govt has not decided yet/
moilol
Fukushima, it's a no brainer. futur olympic game city, japan at its best. and foreign journalists already know how to spell it.
toshiko
@moilolMAR. 17, 2015 - 06:27AM JST Fukushima, it's a no brainer. futur olympic game city, japan at its best. and foreign journalists already know how to spell it.
Are there enough hotel rooms in Fukushima? Are you suggesting they stay in temo shacjks?
Serrano
"G7"
Doesn't include Russia or China. Incredible...