Shivani Gadhavi
Published On: February 12, 2022 at 15:36 IST
Foreign Ministers from the member countries of Quad met on February 11, 2022 and discussed matters relating to safety in Indo-Pacific region, issues pertaining to the Corona Virus and its vaccination, climatic changes and maritime security in the Indo-Pacific region.
The Four member countries vis-a-vis India, Japan, Australia and the United States held the Quad meeting in physical mode after two years due to the onset of the CoronaVirus Pandemic. The present Quad meeting was held in Melbourne, Australia where the Foreign Ministers vis-a-via Indian Minister- S Jaishankar, US Secretary- Antony J Blinken, Australian Minister- Marise Payne and Japanese Minister- Yoshimasa Hayashi of the member countries gathered.
The Quad meeting most prominently covered the issues relating to countries like Russia, China and Myanmar. The issues pertaining to terrorism were also discussed wherein the Indian Minster pointed out to the issue of insurgency going on the Indo-Myanmar border and brought the incident of death of an Indian Colonel and his family members by militants.
A joint statement issued by the Four Member countries read that, “We call on all countries to ensure that territory under their control is not used to launch terror attacks and to expeditiously bring to justice the perpetrators of such attacks.”
There were different opinions of the Foreign Ministers pertaining to the matter of Russia-Ukraine crisis, wherein the Russian Government is allegedly said for building a line of Russian troops along the Ukraine border. However, the Indian Minister did not make any statement regarding the Russian aggression over the Ukrainian forces.
The joint statement of Myanmar also expressed concern over the matter of violence and read that, “We remain gravely concerned about the crisis in Myanmar and call for an end to violence, the release of all those arbitrarily detained, including foreigners, and unhindered humanitarian access.”
It was announced in the media conference by the Quad member countries’ Foreign Ministers that the next meeting for Quad will be held in Tokyo, Japan and hosted by the Prime Minister of Japan-Fumio Kishida, in the first half of the year 2022, which include the Prime Minister of India- Narendra Modi, President of United States- Joe Biden, Prime Minister of Australia- Scott Morrison.