British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will be the chief guest at India’s 2021 Republic Day celebrations, confirmed the United Kingdom.
As per reports, during talks with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar in New Delhi, visiting UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab confirmed that PM Johnson has accepted India’s invite to be the chief guest at the Republic Day Parade next month.
“I’m pleased that PM Boris Johnson has invited PM Modi to join the UK-hosted G7 summit next year. UK PM Johnson has also accepted the very generous invitation to attend India’s Republic Day celebrations in January, which is a great honour,” Foreign Secretary Raab said.
Reportedly, Prime Minister Narendra Modi formally invited him to be the Republic Day chief guest in a November 27 telephone conversation. Johnson, on his part, invited PM Modi to the G-7 summit in the UK next year.
Johnson will be the first British PM to grace the Rajpath parade in 27 years. The last UK premier to be the chief guest at the January 29 parade was John Major in 1993.
It needs to be mentioned here that the developments came ahead of Britain’s exit from the European Union (EU) next year, wherein both the countries look forward to boost their bilateral ties.
Earlier on a November 27 tweet, PM Modi said that he had an excellent discussion with his friend, Johnson, on an ambitious road-map for India-UK ties in the next decade.
“We agreed to work towards a quantum leap in our cooperation in all areas — trade and investments, defence and security, climate change and fighting Covid-19,” PM Modi wrote in the tweet.
Had an excellent discussion with my friend, UK PM @BorisJohnson on an ambitious roadmap for India-UK ties in the next decade. We agreed to work towards a quantum leap in our cooperation in all areas – trade & investment, defence & security, climate change, and fighting Covid-19.
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 27, 2020
