Australia cancels Quad summit in Sydney after Biden postpones trip
Australia,May 17 : Australia on Wednesday cancelled the Quad summit scheduled to take place in Sydney next week after US President Joe Biden postponed his visit due to domestic issues back home.
Amid ongoing negotiations with the US Congress over the debt ceiling hitting a roadblock in the country, Biden cancelled his visits to Australia and Papua New Guinea. He is, however, expected to attend the G7 summit this weekend.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he would instead meet the leaders from India, Japan and the US at the G7 summit in Japan, news agency Reuters reported.
“The Quad leaders’ meeting will not be going ahead in Sydney next week. We, though, will be having that discussion between Quad leaders in Japan,” he told reporters at a press conference.
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In 2017, the US, India, Japan and Australia formed the Quad or quadrilateral coalition in response to China’s growing influence in the Indo-Pacific region.
India and Australia are not members of the G7 group of seven countries — Canada, the UK, the US, France, Germany, Italy and Japan. However, they have been invited to attend the summit in Hiroshima, Japan, from May 19 to May 21.
“I thank (Japanese) Prime Minister (Fumio) Kishida for his invitation for me to attend the G7 and it is appropriate that we talk,” Anthony Albanese said.
The Australian Prime Minister said he spoke with Joe Biden earlier in the day and revealed that the latter expressed his disappointment for not being able to attend the now-cancelled Quad summit.
He said a bilateral programme in Sydney with Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to go ahead next week. He, however, did not comment on whether his Japanese counterpart would still visit Sydney next week, Reuters reported.
-The India Today
