Modi to attend Quad summit, hold bilateral meetings

During his visit to Washington starting on Wednesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend the Quad summit convened by President Joe Biden and hold a series of bilateral meetings with leaders.

The Quad summit on Friday with Prime Ministers, Yoshihide Suga of Japan and Scott Morrison of Australia, will be the first in-person summit of the leaders of the four countries that are focused on the Indo-Pacific region.

It will likely be the last for Suga, who has announced that he is stepping down from the prime ministership.

Soon after landing in Washington, Modi will participate in the Covid-19 summit that Biden has convened.

According to an administration official, the summit aims to "rally the world urgently to work towards ending this pandemic as rapidly as possible and building our systems better, to be able to handle the next pandemic."

Modi is also expected to meet with business leaders.

A bilateral meeting is scheduled with Biden on Friday, at which, Foreign Secretary Harshvardhan Shringla told reporters in New Delhi, they will discuss "the current regional security situation following developments in Afghanistan" and "the need to stem radicalisation, extremism, cross-border terrorism and dismantling of global terror networks".

Enhancing trade and investment, increasing defence and security cooperation, and partnering in developing clean energy will also come up in their talks, Shringla added.

This will be the first in-person meeting with Biden after he became president. They had met earlier when Biden was vice president.

External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval will be accompanying Modi during the visit.

Modi is also scheduled to meet with Vice President Kamala Harris, who is of part Indian-origin.

Bilateral meetings are also expected between him, and Suga and Morrisson.

Modi will be in New York on Saturday to address the high-level meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.