US President Joe Biden is still committed to attending the annual leadership summit of the Quad countries to be held in India this year, the White House said on Thursday.
“We are still committed to a summit of Quad leaders this year, but there is nothing on the calendar for it right now,” White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby told reporters at a press conference here.
The Quad, comprising Australia, Japan, India and the US, is a Biden initiative. In the first 100 days of his presidency, he held a virtual leadership summit of the Quad countries in 2020. Since then, the Quad leaders have been holding annual summits on a rotational basis. India is scheduled to host the Quad Leadership Summit this year.
Kirby said that now that Biden is no longer running for re-election, “certainly, we can expect there to be opportunities in the future that may not have come up before.”
“So we’re all looking at what those opportunities might be in terms of advancing his foreign policy agenda and national security opportunities here and around the world. But I don’t have any schedule to speak about right now, but I mean, stay tuned,” he said.
“I think the president would like to explore some of those opportunities. Look, I mean, there’s still war in Ukraine, there’s still war in Gaza, climate change has to be dealt with. There’s still a lot of turmoil in the Indo-Pacific. I mean, I could go on and on. There’s a lot of things for the national security team to try to get done,” Kirby said in response to a question.