President Joe Biden remains committed to attending this year’s annual leadership summit of the QUAD countries, scheduled to be held in India, the White House announced on July.25.
"We're still committed to there being a Quad leader summit this year, but there's nothing on the calendar right now for it," White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby told reporters at a press conference.
The QUAD, comprising Australia, Japan, India, and the US, is an initiative launched to support a few and prosperous Indo Pacific. Within the first 100 days of his presidency, Biden convened a virtual leadership summit of the QUAD countries in 2020. Since then, QUAD leaders have held an annual summit on a rotation basis, with India set to host this year’s event.
Kirby highlighted that with Biden not running for re-election, new opportunities could arise on his calendar. "So we're all exploring what those opportunities can look like in terms of advancing his foreign policy agenda and national security opportunities here and around the world. But I don't have anything on the schedule to speak to now, but I mean, stay tuned,'' he said.
Kirby emphasized the numerous challenges the administration continues to face: "I think there'll be some opportunities that the president is going to want to explore. Look, I mean, we've still got a war in Ukraine, still got a war in Gaza, still got climate change to deal with. We've still got a very restless Indo-Pacific. I mean, I could go on and on. There's plenty of things for the national security team to try to continue to get done," he said in response to a question.
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