Diplomacy

The Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky will only be welcome at the dinner for heads of state and government leaders at the Huis ten Bosch Palace during the summit. This is evident from the summit programme, announced on Monday (16 June). In previous years, the Ukrainian head of state was given a much more prominent place in the programme. The United States, under the leadership of president Donald Trump, objected to Zelensky's invitation to this year's summit.

The G7 summit, a gathering of major world leaders meeting at Kananaskis, in the Canadian Rockies, has concluded with a joint leaders statement urging a "de-escalation of hostilities in the Middle East, including a ceasefire in Gaza". It stopped short of calling for a ceasefire between Israel and Iran. The leaders' statement, published as US President Trump left Canada, said Israel had a right to defend itself, and that Iran was a source of terror that should not have a nuclear weapon. According to the BBC, its call for a resolution of the crisis that led to a broader de-escalation of hostilities in the Middle East amounted to a diplomatic compromise that preserved G7 unity but watered down the statement's impact.