No high fives for this summit

A small diplomatic issue has arisen over the G-8 summit in Japan this July. And the nervousness is because India is still holding back confirmation on its participation. At the last summit in Heiligendamm in Germany, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was upset at the way the five developing countries8212;India, Brazil, China, Mexico and South Africa, attending as permanent invitees8212;were treated. 8220;We have not come here as petitioners,8221; he said, pointing out how the G-8 draft resolution was not even shared with the invitees. The Ministry of External Affairs too got stick for not sorting this out earlier. Tokyo obviously didn8217;t get the Germany message. It has invited three other countries8212;Indonesia, Malaysia and South Korea8212;to the Hokkaido summit and clubbed them with the five permanent invitees for a breakfast engagement with the G-8 leaders. There is no other exclusive interaction. At Heiligendamm, it had been a luncheon meeting8212;enough to upset the five invitees because they had expected a more substantive engagement. So, ahead of the Hokkaido interaction, no one is taking chances. The five countries have agreed to unite on the issue, and while Japan is trying to make amends by rescheduling the programme, the five have raised the ante. They have conveyed that the draft resolution has to be shown to them. While they are not against other countries being invited, the quintet want their status to be maintained. But will the five countries even attend the summit? Tokyo is nervous as Indian Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon heads for Beijing where he will meet his four counterparts on April 21 to draw up a common position on what is still a resolvable issue.