Amid the ongoing budget session, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar will be busy with a flurry of bilateral and multilateral meetings this week, including some with his counterparts from U.S., U.K., Japan, Australia, China and Russia. On Thursday, shortly after hosting the U.K. Foreign Secretary in Delhi, Mr. Jaishankar will travel to Vientiane on Thursday as Laos hosts the annual outreach meetings of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) from July 25 to 27, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) announced.
In Vientiane, the External Affairs Minister will attend ASEAN-India meet, as well as the East Asia Summit (EAS), which will include Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov. He will also attend ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), with more than 25 countries, including south Asian countries Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, and hold a number of bilateral meetings with his counterparts on the sidelines.
“It is of particular significance that this year marks a decade of India’s Act East Policy” an MEA statement said, referring to the India’s policy towards ASEAN countries that was announced in 2014, that updated the earlier “Look East” policy announced in 1991.
On Sunday, Mr. Jaishankar will fly directly to Tokyo for the Quad Foreign Ministers’ meeting (July 28-30) along with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, to be hosted by Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa.
Enhancing cooperation
In an announcement in Tokyo on Tuesday, Mr. Kamikawa said the Quad Foreign Ministers’ meeting would focus on enhancing cooperation in a number of areas “including maritime affairs, women, peace, and security [WPS], critical and emerging technologies, cyber, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, and disinformation, toward the realisation of a free and open Indo-Pacific.”
In a separate statement, the MEA said Quad Ministers would “discuss regional and international issues, and guide future collaboration to achieve the shared vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific region by addressing contemporary priorities of the region through delivery of public goods.” In particular, the Quad Foreign Ministers will work on possible schedules for a Quad Summit of all leaders, that has been derailed by upcoming U.S. elections in November. Officials said the Summit might not be held until a new U.S. President is in place in January 2025. However, NSAs Ajit Doval and Jake Sullivan held a telephone conversation on July 12, speaking of the Summit “later in the year”, according to an official readout, indicating they still expected outgoing U.S. President Joseph Biden, who bowed out of the Presidential race this week, could attend a summit in the next few months.
Mr. Jaishankar would also have the chance to meet Mr. Blinken, for the first time since tensions rose between India and the U.S. over Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Russia earlier this month, in both Vientiane and Tokyo.
Published - July 24, 2024 06:05 am IST
