: Keen to discuss COVID-19, challenges in Indo-Pacific at historic Quad meeting: Aus PM Morrison #IndiaNEWS #Insights Terming as historic his first-ever Quad meeting with leaders from the US, India

Keen to discuss COVID-19, challenges in Indo-Pacific at historic Quad meeting: Aus PM Morrison #IndiaNEWS #Insights
Terming as historic his first-ever Quad meeting with leaders from the US, India and Japan, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Friday that he was keen to discuss with close friends the issues of COVID-19 and security and maritime challenges across the Indo-Pacific region.

Known as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, representatives for the four-member nations have met periodically since its establishment in 2007.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, US President Joe Biden, Australian Prime Minister Morrison, and his Japanese counterpart Yoshihide Suga will attend the virtual summit, which is the first conclave of the top leaders of the Quadrilateral alliance, on Friday.

First of all, Im looking forward very much to later this evening, in fact, the early hours of tomorrow morning. I will be joining President Biden and Prime Minister Modi and Prime Minister Suga from Japan in what will be the first-ever leaders meeting of what is known as the Quad, Morrison said.

Describing it a historic meeting of four leaders representing the nations that are close friends , the Australian prime minister said he was looking forward to the discussions that will be over a range of topics.

In particular how were dealing in the region with COVID-19, the challenges that we have with security and maritime domain here across the Indo-Pacific and also how were working together to achieve net zero into the future on emissions and move to a new energy economy right across the Indo-Pacific region and indeed around the world, Morrison said.

Im sure there will be many other issues that we address and technology partnerships will be necessary to achieve those goals. So, it is an historic moment and I think it does demonstrate Australias agency in the world. This is something that we have been working towards for many years now. It has been a goal of ours to see the leaders meeting of the Quad come together, he added.

The meeting to be held virtually is expected to last about 90 minutes, during which all the four leaders would also lay out their vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific. amidst China flexing its muscles in the strategically-vital region.

China is engaged in hotly contested territorial disputes in the South and East China Seas. Beijing has also made substantial progress in militarising its man-made islands in the past few years.

Beijing claims sovereignty over all of the South China Sea. But Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei and Taiwan have counterclaims. In the East China Sea, China has territorial disputes with Japan.

There have been meetings of foreign ministers. There have been many other meetings.