According to the paper, the discussion of the reform plan with WHO and G7 members is to begin in September.

The main goal of the reform would be to increase the organization’s operational efficiency and ensure full transparency of information about disease outbreaks both on behalf of the WHO and its member states, TASS reported.

G7 hopes to gain broad support for its plan during the November session of the World Health Assembly – the supreme governing body of the international organization.

US President Donald Trump said on May 29 that Washington was terminating its relations with the World Health Organization “because they have failed to make the requested and greatly needed reforms.” The US leader claimed the WHO was being controlled by China and accused China and the WHO of not taking due measures to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus infection.

The United States notified the United Nations about its withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO) from July 6, 2021, Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for the UN secretary-general, said.

“I certainly would invite Putin to the G7 meeting. I think he’s an important factor,” Trump told a White House briefing on Monday answering a question.

Trump also told reporters he was considering plans of holding the G7 summit after the November election. “I’m much more inclined to do it sometime after the election.”

According to Trump, the US has not yet formally invited leaders. “We haven’t sent out invitations. We’re talking to them,” he said, noting that there were plans on inviting countries that aren’t formal members of the G7, TASS reported.

The summit, which was due to be held at Camp David in June, was later postponed until September. Trump earlier announced plans to invite Russia, Australia, India, and South Korea to this meeting.

The G7 is a group of industrialized nations that includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The group held its first meeting in 1975. The G7 was renamed the G8 in 1997 when Russia joined the club. However, following the 2014 events in Ukraine that created a crisis in relations between Russia and the West, the group’s Western members decided to revert to the G7 model.

The message, in which Tokyo claimed Seoul is out of lockstep with G7 members on Chinese and North Korean issues, was conveyed by a high-level Japanese government official immediately after Trump on May 30 broached the idea of inviting Australia, India, Russia, and South Korea to this year’s summit. The US leader is due to preside over the summit later this year.

The diplomatic sources said the Japanese official was told by the US side that any final decision on the issue would rest with Trump.

The revelation that Japan expressed opposition to South Korea’s participation is likely to upset Seoul, which has welcomed Trump’s offer. It could further sour Tokyo-Seoul ties already overshadowed by disputes over wartime history and other issues.

On a TV program Sunday, Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi echoed Tokyo’s opposition to Trump’s suggestion.

“It’s very important to keep the G7 framework itself, and I believe this is an overall consensus,” he said, Kyodo News Agency reported.

For Japan, South Korea’s inclusion would mean losing its status as the sole Asian member of the G7, which also brings together Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and the United States plus the European Union.

Trump has suggested that he wants to expand the G7 because he believes the current membership does not properly represent the global situation and is “very outdated.”

Trump was also quoted as telling South Korean President Moon Jae-in during phone talks earlier in June that he may also invite Brazil, with the expanded group to be called either the “G11” or “G12,” according to the South Korean presidential office.

According to the sources, the high-level Japanese official pointed to the Moon administration’s perceived pro-China policy as problematic, apparently with the Trump administration’s current confrontational approach to China in mind.

The Moon administration has also striven to boost inter-Korean relations. The Trump administration has not budged from its stance of maintaining sanctions on Pyongyang during talks to denuclearize North Korea, which have been stalled for months.

According to the sources, the Japanese government has refrained from publicly expressing its opposition to South Korea’s participation, thinking that Trump’s G7 expansion proposal maybe just “a thought” that might fizzle out.

Japan’s top government spokesman Yoshihide Suga said at a news conference on June 1 that the G7 is an “important framework” for coordination in tackling global challenges.

Asked whether the US government had informed Japan of Trump’s G7 expansion plan, Suga said, “I will refrain from speaking about the details, but Japan and the United States are engaged in close communication.”

Members such as Canada, meanwhile, have expressed opposition to Russia’s return to the forum. Russia, which was a member of the Group of Eight, was dropped from the framework following the international outcry over its annexation of Crimea in 2014.

“We thought Japan does not need to lead the opposition (on this issue),” one of the sources said.

Trump has been unclear on exactly when he plans to hold the G7 summit after postponing it from June. He said on May 30 that it could take place in September or even after the November presidential election.

While it is up to the holder of the rotating G7 presidency to decide which countries to invite as guests to the summit, changing the format on a permanent basis would require the consent of all members.

Japan would not object to South Korea merely taking part in an outreach session of the G7 meeting, the sources said.

“I’m postponing it because I don’t feel as a G7 it probably represents what’s going on in the world. It’s a very outdated group of countries,” Trump said, according to a press pool report. He also said he’d like to invite additional countries, including Russia, Australia, South Korea, and India, to attend the summit, NBC News reported.

Russia was ejected from what was then the G8 in 2014 as punishment for the annexation of Crimea.

The announcement comes a day after AP and other news outlets reported that German Chancellor Angela Merkel would not attend a meeting in-person amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Earlier this month, Trump tweeted that he was considering rescheduling the G7 for June at Camp David in Washington as a sign of “normalization.” But on Friday, Merkel refused the invitation, citing the continued risk of the pandemic.

“The federal chancellor thanks President Trump for his invitation to the G7 summit at the end of June in Washington. As of today, considering the overall pandemic situation, she cannot agree to her personal participation, to a journey to Washington,” a German government spokesman told Politico.

G7 is the nickname for the informal group of seven large industrialized countries — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States — that meet periodically to discuss global matters. Originally scheduled for June 2020, Trump said in March the event would be held virtually before later changing his mind and reviving the idea of an in-person event this summer.