Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has ruled out a Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) summit taking place in Sydney without US President Joe Biden, saying the four member states’ leaders would talk at the G7 meeting this weekend in Japan.
Albanese yesterday said that he understands why Biden pulled out of the summit to focus on debt limit talks in Washington, as they are crucial to the economy.
The summit including Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida had been scheduled for Wednesday next week.
Photo: Reuters
“The blocking and the disruption that’s occurring in domestic politics in the United States, with the debt ceiling issue, means that, because that has to be solved prior to 1st June — otherwise there are quite drastic consequences for the US economy, which will flow on to the global economy — he understandably has had to make that decision,” Albanese told reporters.
Biden “expressed very much his disappointment” at being unable to come to the Sydney summit and to the national capital Canberra a day earlier to address the Australian parliament, Albanese said.
The four leaders would soon be together in Hiroshima, Japan, for the G7 summit and are planning to meet there, he said.
“The Quad is an important body and we want to make sure that it occurs at leadership level, and we’ll be having that discussion over the weekend,” Albanese said.
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