Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on Thursday participate in a virtual meeting of the Quad leaders along with US President Joe Biden and Prime Ministers Fumio Kishida of Japan and Scott Morrison of Australia.
The out-of-turn meeting was announced by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi.
The meeting is taking place within six months of the first in-person Quad summit held in Washington DC in September 2021 and within a month of the Quad foreign ministers’ meeting in Australia.
It was announced in the foreign ministers’ meeting that Japan would host the next leaders’ summit in the first half of 2022. It is not yet clear if the meeting scheduled for today has replaced the summit in Japan that was announced earlier or whether today’s meeting is in addition to it.
The Quad leaders would meet in the backdrop of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but the Indian announcement did not mention it.
The ministry said, “The Leaders will have an opportunity to continue their dialogue after the September 2021 Summit in Washington DC. They will exchange views and assessments about important developments in the Indo-Pacific. The Quad Leaders will also review ongoing efforts to implement the Leaders’ initiatives announced as part of the Quad's contemporary and positive agenda.”
While the United States has spearheaded the global condemnation of Russia, Australia has called for Russia to become a “pariah state” and Japan has said the country “stands with Ukraine”. However, New Delhi has so far maintained that the matter should be resolved through dialogue.
Beside the Quad leaders’ summit, a meeting of the Consultative Committee of Parliament on External Affairs took place earlier on Thursday, in which External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar briefed members of the parliament. This committee has 21 members from both the houses of the parliament in addition to the Minister of External Affairs and Ministers of State for External Affairs.
Congress's Shashi Tharoor tweeted photographs from the meeting and called it "frank" and "excellent".
He said, "Excellent meeting of the Consultative Committee on External Affairs this morning on Ukraine. My thanks to Dr S Jaishankar and his colleagues for a comprehensive briefing and candid responses to our questions and concerns. This is the spirit in which foreign policy should be run. Frank discussions took place in an amicable atmosphere, a reminder that when it comes to national interests we are all Indians first and foremost."
Nine MPs from six parties attended the meeting, which also included Congress's Rahul Gandhi and Anand Sharma, added Tharoor.
Prior to this, Prime Minister Narendra Modi held two telephonic conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin since the Russian announcement of the Ukrainian offensive.
Regarding the conversation last night, the Ministry of External Affairs said, “The leaders reviewed the situation in Ukraine, especially in the city of Kharkiv where many Indian students are stuck. They discussed the safe evacuation of the Indian nationals from the conflict areas.”
