To ensure there is no fallout with India over the new agreement made between Australia, United Kingdom and the United States AUKUS, a US senior government official in President Joe Biden administration has said, the Quad cooperation is a priority, and hosting its leaders was a fundamental demonstration of the importance attached to engagement in the Indo-Pacific region.
The official further stressed that the engagement among the Quad nations — the US, India, Australia, and Japan “would be through new multilateral configurations designed to focus on challenges of the 21st Century, while stressing the promotion of a free and open Indo-Pacific region.”
Biden is hosting the first Quad face-to-face summit at the White House on September 24, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Japan’s Yoshihide Suga, and Australia’s Scott Morrison.
“President Biden has made the Quad a priority, as we all saw through the first Quad leaders-level engagement in March, which was virtual, and now this summit, which will be in person,” the senior official was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
He said the main areas of consultations and announcements will be on Covid-19. “In March, there was a commitment to producing a billion vaccines via Quad, by 2022 end. There’ll be some announcements about moving that forward and other forms of Covid assistance,” he added.
The Quad members would also make some major announcements on clean energy and climate-related crisis and he added, Partnering on emerging technologies in cyberspace, promoting high-standard infrastructure, and, of course, an overarching commitment at the core of the Quad to promoting a free and open Indo-Pacific,”.
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