External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar will attend a meeting of the Quad foreign ministers in Washington on July 1, ahead of the upcoming Quad Summit that India is set to host later this year, according to the U.S. State Department.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio will host the meeting, which will be attended by Foreign Minister Penny Wong of Australia and Foreign Minister Iwaya Takeshi of Japan, Principal Deputy Spokesperson Thomas Pigott said on Thursday.
Pigott noted that Secretary Rubio’s first diplomatic engagement after assuming office on January 21 was a Quad foreign ministers’ meeting, held just one day after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, underscoring the new administration’s focus on the Indo-Pacific.
Next week’s meeting, he added, “builds on that momentum to advance a free, open, and secure Indo-Pacific.”
“This is what American leadership looks like: strength, peace, and prosperity,” Pigott remarked.
Jaishankar also confirmed the upcoming meeting on X, saying he had a preparatory telephonic conversation with Penny Wong on Thursday.
This will be the first Quad foreign ministers’ meeting since the Pahalgam terror attack, which claimed the lives of 26 civilians in Jammu & Kashmir in April.
Before heading to Washington, Jaishankar is scheduled to inaugurate an exhibition at the United Nations on “The Human Cost of Terrorism” on Monday. India’s Permanent Mission to the UN said the exhibition will “highlight the devastating toll of heinous terrorist acts around the world.” The event will take place just a day before Pakistan assumes the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council.
The July 1 Quad meeting is expected to lay the groundwork for the upcoming Quad Summit in India, which will bring together President Donald Trump, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, alongside Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
At their last interaction in February, PM Modi had expressed his eagerness to host President Trump for the Summit, reaffirming India’s commitment to Quad cooperation.
The upcoming meeting, the first significant foreign affairs dialogue following Trump’s return to office, signals a renewed U.S. focus on the Indo-Pacific at a time when tensions in the Middle East and Ukraine appear to have somewhat stabilised. With the Israel-Iran conflict easing, strategic attention is expected to shift back toward the Indo-Pacific, where China continues to pose challenges to regional security and sovereignty.
(With inputs from IANS)
