Washington, Oct 31 (IANS) US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the Quad was shifting from meetings to “concrete actions” and that a Quad leaders’ meeting was expected in Manila next month, as he closed the G20 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Atlanta on Saturday.
Answering a question from IANS at his closing press conference, Rubio said the challenge for any grouping like the Quad was turning discussion into delivery.
“So, you know, the challenge in any time you put together a format like Quad is you can sit, and you can meet, and you can say, ‘We have all these things we wanna work together on, you actually have to do it.’ So in many cases, it’s going from talking about it to doing it,” he said.
He said the four countries had “some success in infrastructure projects” and were “hoping to put together a business forum so that the businesses of the four countries can meet and identify unique opportunities to work together.”
Rubio cited humanitarian assistance and disaster relief as an area of “substantial progress”. “We wanna be in a situation where the next time there is a humanitarian and/or crisis or natural disaster in the region, that we can pull our resources to quickly provide assistance to a country that’s been hurt by a typhoon or an earthquake or a mudslide or whatever it might be,” he said.
Maritime domain awareness was another focus. “Maritime awareness is another area where I think we can pull our resources to better understand not just what’s happening at the surface, but also under the water,” he said.
“I think we’re building really good momentum and I think hopefully when our leaders meet, in November, they will be able to announce some more concrete steps,” Rubio said. “The best way to make a forum useful and important is to make sure that it does something, not just talks about it, but does it.”
In his opening remarks, he said: “The quad is something we’ve invested a lot of time in. I think this year alone, we’ve met four or five times.” He added that “hopefully we’ll be announcing very soon, if we haven’t already, that we’ll have a Quad leaders meeting in Manila”.
Rubio, asked whether the Quad statement targeted China, said: “The Quad is not an anti-anybody. It’s not a, it’s not a format that exists to be against any country.” He added: “Now, those activities or behaviours are coming repeatedly from one country; that’s gonna be obvious to everybody, but it is not an anti-China or anti-anybody coalition.”
He also noted India’s role in Black Sea shipping. “When you talk about the Black Sea, obviously you saw a lot of countries speak up and provide the willingness to both Turkey and India have come to the table with some ideas about how we need to bring shipments moving because this is threatening the world of food security and some energy security as well,” he said. Later he added that “India also expressed an interest in perhaps floating some ideas.”
–IANS
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