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18-05-2023
Bureau Report + Agencies
SYDNEY/ WASHINGTON: A summit of the Quad countries scheduled to be held in Sydney next week will be postponed after US President Joe Biden pulled out because of debt ceiling negotiations in Washington, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says.
The leaders of Australia, India, Japan and the United States will instead meet at the Group of Seven (G7) summit in Japan this weekend, Albanese said on Wednesday. Biden cancelled a trip to Sydney on the second leg of his upcoming Asia-Pacific trip, which was also to have included a visit to Papua New Guinea.
Albanese said it was “disappointing” that Biden decided he could not come for the May 24 summit, which Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida were also supposed to attend.
“The decision of President Biden meant that you can’t have a Quad leaders meeting when there are only three out of the four there,” Albanese said.
The four leaders are planning to meet in Hiroshima during the G7 summit, he said.
“The Quad is an important body, and we want to make sure that it occurs at leadership level, and we’ll be having that discussion over the weekend,” the prime minister said.
Biden “expressed very much his disappointment” at being unable to come to the Sydney summit and to the Australian capital, Canberra, to address parliament, Albanese said.
He said Modi will visit Sydney next week, noting the Indian leader is scheduled to give an address to the Indian diaspora at a sold-out 20,000-seat stadium on Tuesday.
“Prime Minister Modi will be here next week for a bilateral meeting with myself,” Albanese told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. “He will also have business meetings. He’ll hold a very public event … in Sydney.”
The Quad is an informal group that promotes an open Indo-Pacific. China sees it as an attempt to push back against its growing influence in the region.
