Australia cancels Quad summit after Biden calls off trip; Modi's visit on
Hours after India formally announced Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Sydney for a summit of the Quad on May 24, US President Joe Biden pulled out of it, prompting Australia to call off the meeting.
Modi, Biden and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will, however, attend the G7 summit to be hosted by Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Hiroshima from Friday to Sunday.
With all the Quad leaders travelling to Hiroshima, the officials of the four nations were exploring the possibility of the leaders holding an informal meeting on the sidelines of the G7 summit itself, Albanese said early on Wednesday.
Biden was scheduled to visit Japan, Australia and Papua New Guinea. But the White House late on Tuesday announced that he would return to Washington DC after the G7 summit to continue discussions with leaders of the US Congress on ways to avert a looming debt default.
The US's announcement came a few hours after India formally confirmed Modi's visits. The the Ministry of External Affairs had issued a press release on Tuesday evening, announcing that the PM would visit Japan and Australia for the G7 and Quad summits respectively, as well as Papua New Guinea for a conclave of the Forum for India–Pacific Islands Cooperation (FIPIC) between May 19 and 24.
The way the US pulled out of the Quad summit has upset New Delhi but it refrained from publicly expressing its displeasure, apparently to avoid straining bilateral ties ahead of Modi's visit to Washington DC for a meeting with Biden.
Biden is also expected to visit India for the G20 summit to be hosted by Modi on September 9 and 10.
"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 told ABC Radio.
Albanese also said that he still looked forward to welcoming Modi on a bilateral visit to Australia next week.
New Delhi did not formally announce any change in the prime minister’s travel plans till late in the evening on Wednesday.
The Quad is a four-nation coalition launched in 2007 and revived in 2017 to counter China’s expansionist moves in the Indo-Pacific.
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