Undelining the centrality of India in QUAD, the United States on Monday said that New Delhi was the 'driving force' of the four-nation group.
“We recognise that India is a like-minded partner and leader in South Asia and the Indian Ocean, active in and connected to the Southeast Asia, a driving force of the Quad, and an engine for regional growth and development,” said White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
The United States has also emphasized upon building a strategic partnership with India to ensure regional peace and stability. “…we will continue to build a strategic partnership in which the United States and India work together to promote stability in South Asia; collaborate in new domains such as health, space, cyberspace — which is important; deepen our economic and technology cooperation; and contribute to a free and open Indo-Pacific,” the Principal Deputy Press Secretary further said.
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The US also confirmed that the issue of the Ukraine crisis was taken up during the meeting by Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.
“It was an opportunity to discuss Russia’s ongoing threat to Ukraine. They discussed the threat that Russia’s aggression poses not only to Ukraine but to the entire international rules-based order, which has provided a foundation for decades of shared security and prosperity for the region and around the globe,” she further said.
India’s Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar had declared in the post-QUAD press brief that India doesn’t follow sanctions imposed by individual countries rather it respects multilateral sanctions (in context of Myanmar and Russia). To this, the US said that it is closely cooperating with India on critical international matters. “…we’re working closely with a range of allies and partners, including India,” she further said.
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