Quad leaders will welcome new forms of cooperation: White House ahead of Hiroshima summit today

Hiroshima [Japan], May 20 (ANI): US President Joe Biden thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese and Japan’s prime minister Fumio Kishida for agreeing to participate in the third in-person Quad meeting on Saturday the sidelines of the G7 summit in the Japanese city of Hiroshima.

The Quad summit will take place today in Hiroshima after Biden postponed his visit to Australia’s Sydney where it was scheduled to be held next week.

The White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre in a statement on Friday (local time) said that Quad leaders agreed to hold their summit in Hiroshima to ensure that the four leaders could come together to mark the Quad’s progress over the past year.

“Tomorrow (Saturday) in addition to the G7, President Biden will participate in the third in-person Quad Leaders’ meeting with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of Australia, Prime Minister Kishida Fumio of Japan, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India,” the White House statement said.

“Along with sharing strategic assessments, the leaders will welcome new forms of Quad cooperation on secure digital technology, submarine cables, infrastructure capacity building, and maritime awareness,” the statement added.

Biden believes having that conversation on Indo-Pacific is incredibly important, the statement further read.

United States National Security Advisor (NSA) Jack Sullivan, while addressing reporters at a press briefing in Hiroshima on Friday (local time) said that the Hiroshima summit would be a high watermark for G7 and that it will demonstrate real unity among the key democracies on a range of critical issues.

He said that today (Saturday), the leaders of G7 will release a joint statement in support of the Russia-Ukraine issue and their approach to the People’s Republic of China.

“Yesterday, President Biden informed his counterparts that the US will support a joint effort to train Ukrainian pilots,” Sullivan said, adding, “We’re expanding our sanctions authorities to additional sectors of the Russian economy that are key to its military-industrial complex.

We’re imposing new bans to prevent Russia from benefitting from our services and our actions are more tightly coordinated with the ones imposed by the EU (European Union) and the UK (United Kingdom) to ensure that we have kind of a full alignment with them.”

Sullivan added that the US was in the midst of a massive effort to ensure that Ukraine has what it needed to be able to launch a counteroffensive this summer.

He also said that today’s summit would focus on economic security and that the G7 leaders would outline a common set of tools to address concerns that each of the member countries faces.

“This year what the communique will reflect is a statement of key elements on which all G7 countries are aligned when it comes to dealing with the People’s Republic of China,” Sullivan said.

“The communique will note that each country has independent and unique relationship and approach but we are united and aligned around a set of common elements and it will walk through these elements,” he added.

The G7 leaders are currently in Japan to attend the G7 Summit scheduled to be held in Hiroshima from May 19-21. Notably, Japan assumed the G7 Presidency in 2023.

The Summit is an international forum held annually for the leaders of the G7 member states of France, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Italy, and Canada (in order of rotating presidency), and the European Union (EU).