Foreign Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar is attending the fourth Quartet foreign ministers meeting in Melbourne on Friday.
Jashankar will pay an official visit to Australia from February 10 to 13 at the invitation of Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MEA) said in a press release. The MEA also said it would be his first visit to Australia as foreign minister.
Australia will host India, Japan and the US for the fourth quadrilateral foreign ministers meeting, with senior diplomats seeking to strengthen cooperation in areas including the economy, security, the coronavirus pandemic and a free and open Indo-Pacific.
The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) is a partnership of four countries, each of which has made a commitment to the openness, transparency and challenges that the current global order presents.
This is the first Quartet foreign ministers’ meeting since the two Quartet summits last year. Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne will discuss the Quartet’s aggressive and ambitious agenda with India’s Foreign Minister Dr S Jaishankar, Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi and US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.
They will discuss the ongoing quadrilateral cooperation in bilateral calls and meetings. As the four countries have strong bilateral cooperation, they are building institutional linkages to further advance the Quartet’s cooperation in areas such as healthcare, infrastructure, space, education and more.
Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne, who will chair the four ministers, said she looked forward to welcoming foreign ministers from all four countries to discuss our aggressive and ambitious agenda to support a secure and prosperous Indo-Pacific.
“Together we are an important network of liberal democracies committed to practical cooperation and to ensuring that all Indo-Pacific nations, large and small, can make their own strategic decisions without coercion,” the Australian government quoted Payne as saying. .
“We will continue our efforts to deepen this pragmatic cooperation, including supporting our region’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. We will discuss together our vaccine distribution in our region, networking and key technologies, combating disinformation, counter-terrorism, maritime security, and more work, humanitarian and disaster response, and climate change,” she added.
Payne said the four-way partners will continue to support ASEAN’s centrality in the stability and prosperity of the region, including support for the effective implementation of ASEAN’s Indo-Pacific Vision.
This is the third face-to-face meeting of foreign ministers from the Quartet, following the first in Tokyo in October 2020 and in New York City in September 2019. The last virtual meeting of ministers was in February 2021.
Complete News Source : Hindustan Times
