Washington: In his meeting with Quad leaders both in multilateral and bilateral settings, Prime Minister Narendra Modi put forward India's views and commitments for global growth, development, peace and security.
Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri made these remarks at a special briefing in New York on Sunday.
Modi on Saturday had three separate bilateral meetings with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and US President Joe Biden along with the Quad Leadership Summit in Wilmington, Delaware.
“All of these engagements today have given the opportunity to Prime Minister to put forward India's views and commitments for global growth, development, and peace and security,” Misri told reporters in New York.
Prime Minister Modi reached New York on Sunday after wrapping up the Quad Leaders’ meeting in Wilmington, hosted by President Biden.
In a rare gesture, Biden hosted Modi for a bilateral meeting in his home, and the Quad summit was held at the Archmere Academy in Wilmington.
“In a sense, the overarching themes that have been reflected across the multiple meetings...the overall messages that have come through in all of his engagements have been India's emphasis on minimising conflict and division, leveraging our democratic values even as we pursue our development objectives, and highlighting the role of technology and the digital revolution in ushering in good governance, essentially to turn the disruptive features of technology to good ends,” Misri said.
“In the bilateral meetings, all these themes found reflection in the interactions with the other leaders,” he added.
With the United States, a very special feature of the bilateral meeting was the return of 297 antiquities to India, a few of which were on display at Biden’s residence during the bilateral meeting.
At the Quad Leadership Summit and others associated with it, Misri said the Prime Minister underlined India's approach of cooperation, contact, and engagement for growth with a variety of partners in the Indo-Pacific.
“It was striking to hear the other Quad leaders acknowledge India's actions and also at the same time hear their expectations of India, which really underlines the need to continue to work and sustain this enormous trust that India has earned from its partners,” Misri said.
Aspects of technology were emphasised in both the bilateral and the plurilateral formats, he said adding the prime minister underscored the need to prevent the malign use of technology and to put technology to good use.
Prime Minister thanked President Biden profusely for hosting the summit for his leadership of the Quad in recent times and for his commitment to strengthen the Quad as a force for global good.
“In fact, the Prime Minister today referred to the Quad in a very, very evocative way. He called it in a very, very evocative way. He called it quick unified assistance delivery (QUAD). The other members of the Quad said that they finally understood what Quad signified and stood for,” Misri said.
Modi also mentioned that at a time when the world is ridden with tensions and conflicts, the coming together of these four Quad partners with shared democratic values is important for humanity. He said the Quad was here to stay, to assist, to partner and to complement the efforts of the Indo-Pacific countries, Misri said.
“The leaders took stock of the progress that has been achieved by the Quad over the last year and set forth an ambitious agenda for the next year,” he said adding that India will be hosting the Quad Summit in 2025.
Amongst the major announcements from the summit was the Quad Cancer Moonshot, which is a groundbreaking partnership to address the challenges posed by cancer and in this particular instance cervical cancer.
The partners also launched the first-ever Quad at Sea Ship Observer Mission.
This will take place in 2025 to improve interoperability and advance maritime safety between respective coastguards across the Indo-Pacific.
The Quad Indo-Pacific Logistics Network project will pursue shared airlift capacity among nations and leverage their collective logistics strengths to support civilian response to natural disasters more efficiently and more rapidly.
The Quad Ports of the Future Partnership will harness Quad's collective expertise to support sustainable and resilient port infrastructure development across the Indo-Pacific. Partners will share practices that ensure that our ports can maintain an acceptable level of service and infrastructure to ships, especially in the face of disruptions.
A memorandum of cooperation has been announced that would leverage the complementary strengths of the Quad partners to realise a diversified and competitive market and enhance Quad resilience in semiconductor supply chains, he said.
There was discussion of multiple regional and global issues, and amongst them the need for the reform of the multilateral system of governance, including the UN Security Council.
During the Prime Minister's meeting with Biden, both sides on the occasion of this meeting exchanged agreements on the deposit of the instruments of ratification for Pillar 3 and Pillar 4 of the IPEF and the overarching agreement thereof.
External Affairs Minister S Jayashankar and Secretary of State Tony Blinken also exchanged the agreement on a bilateral drug policy framework and the accompanying MOU.
During the meeting, both sides discussed at length the ever-expanding agenda of the India-US comprehensive global strategic partnership, which has left no aspect of human endeavour untouched. “They discussed ongoing cooperation in technology, in clean energy, in space, our engagement in defence and security, and, of course, the regional and global situation,” he said.
Modi thanked Biden for his pioneering role in strengthening the India-US partnership over the last four years. In particular, he highlighted Biden's legacy initiative of the Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies.
Modi’s meeting with Prime Minister Kishida was like a farewell meeting given the party elections that are scheduled later this month in Japan.
Modi appreciated in a very fulsome fashion the contribution to the bilateral relationship that has been made by Kishida. Next year is also the 10th anniversary of the India-Japan Special Strategic and Global Partnership, and it was agreed that this should be marked appropriately.
Sharing details about the meeting with Albanese, Misri said 2025 also happens to be the fifth anniversary of the comprehensive strategic partnership between India and Australia.
“There was a reference to the progress made under ECTA and the impact that it was already having on trade between the two countries and the steps that the two sides were taking to conclude even more ambitious economic cooperation agreements such as the SICA,” he said.
There was discussion on cooperation in defence and security-related issues and the potential for cooperation in space and critical minerals.