US President, Joe Biden will host his counterparts from Australia, Japan and India for a leader-level meeting of the Quad Indo-Pacific alliance next weekend, the White House announced Thursday.
The Sept. 21 meeting, which will include Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will take place in Biden’s hometown of Wilmington, Delaware.
The executive mansion billed the choice of the venue as “a reflection of his deep personal relationships with each of the Quad Leaders, and the importance of the Quad to all of our countries.”
“The Biden-Harris Administration has made elevating and institutionalizing the Quad a top priority, from the first-ever Quad Leaders Summit at the White House in 2021, to annual Summits since then,” spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.
“The Quad Leaders Summit will focus on bolstering the strategic convergence among our countries, advancing our shared vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific region, and delivering concrete benefits for partners in the Indo-Pacific in key areas,” she added.
A Quad conference was canceled last year because Biden had to return to Washington to manage negotiations on the US debt ceiling, Instead, the summit was held on the margins of the G7 meeting in Japan in May 2023.
