The White House said on Thursday that US President Joe Biden is committed to attending the QUAD countries’ annual leadership summit scheduled to be held in India this year.
“We’re still committed to there being a Quad leader summit this year, but there’s nothing on the calendar right now for it,” White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby told reporters at a news conference here.
QUAD, comprising Australia, Japan, India and the US, is an initiative of Biden. In the first 100 days of his presidency, he convened a virtual leadership summit of the QUAD countries in 2020. Since then QUAD leaders have been holding an annual summit on a rotation basis. India is scheduled to host the QUAD leadership summit this year.
Kirby said now that Biden is not running for reelection, certainly, one can expect there will be opportunities on the calendar that may not have been before. “So we’re all exploring what those opportunities can look like in terms of advancing his foreign policy agenda and national security opportunities here and around the world. But I don’t have anything on the schedule to speak to now, but I mean, stay tuned,’ he said.
“I think there’ll be some opportunities that the president is going to want to explore. Look, I mean, we’ve still got a war in Ukraine, still got a war in Gaza, still got climate change to deal with. We’ve still got a very restless Indo-Pacific. I mean, I could go on and on. There’s plenty of things for the national security team to try to continue to get done,” Kirby said in response to a question.
The White House official’s comments came ahead of the Quad Foreign Ministers’ meeting on July 29 in Tokyo. External Affairs Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar will attend the meeting, where discussions from their previous gathering in New York—focusing on developments in the Indo-Pacific region—will be reviewed. They will also assess progress on Quad initiatives and working groups.
The agenda will cover regional and international issues, aiming to advance a shared vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific. The ministers plan to address contemporary regional priorities and enhance collaboration to deliver public goods in the region.
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