UK Prime Minister Johnson to visit India in bid to boost defence ties

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is set to make a long-delayed trip to India this week in a bid to strengthen security ties with the country. He will meet his counterpart Narendra Modi in New Delhi on Friday, with talks focused on defence and trade. It will be Mr Johnson’s first major trip to India as PM after previous visits were postponed due to Covid.

The UK has been trying to persuade India to reduce its reliance on Moscow since Russia invaded Ukraine. Last month, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss visited India in an attempt to get the country to impose stronger sanctions against Russia and to cooperate more closely on trade, defence, energy and food security.

In April last year, Mr Johnson cancelled a trip to India when the South Asian nation was added to the UK’s red list, meaning people returning from there had to quarantine in a hotel for 10 days. Initially, the government had insisted the trip would go ahead, despite India’s soaring coronavirus cases and the new delta variant. A trip in January 2021 to India was also cancelled due to the UK lockdown.