Washington | US President Joe Biden on Saturday rolled out the red carpet to welcome leaders of QUAD countries, Prime Ministers Narendra Modi of India, Anthony Albanese from Australia and Fumio Kishida of Japan.
Biden welcomed the three leaders for the QUAD Leadership Summit at the Archmere Academy in his hometown, Wilmington.
The welcome ceremony took place on the terrace with its neoclassical columns. A red carpet was laid and two service personnel held flags - one of the US and the other swapped in for each of the three visiting nations.
Australian Prime Minister Albanese pulled up first and shook hands with Biden. The Japanese motorcade pulled up next, and Kishida walked up on the red carpet, reaching out a hand to Biden who embraced him gently.
After that, Prime Minister Modi walked up the red carpet after US Ambassador to India Eric Garcetti went towards the car to greet him. Modi and Biden embraced and clasped hands, following which the Indian Prime Minister appeared to say something as the two leaders posed for a photo and shook hands.
Biden waved and turned first to lead his guest inside his former school.
A reporter shouted a question at Biden, asking if the Quad would survive beyond the election in November. “Way beyond November. Way beyond November,” the president said. The four leaders then posed for a group picture.
The presidential elections will take place in the US on November 5.
The annual Quad summit being hosted by President Biden in his hometown Wilmington is expected to roll out a series of new initiatives to boost cooperation in the Indo-Pacific and explore ways to find peaceful solutions to the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza.
US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said that Biden hosting the leaders summit in his hometown and having bilateral meetings with the leaders at his home is "significant".
“You guys have heard the president say many times that all politics is personal, all diplomacy is personal and developing personal relationships has been core to his approach to foreign policy as president,” Sullivan told reporters.
“So opening his home to the leaders of India, Japan, and Australia is a way of him showing, not just saying that these leaders matter to him, that the Quad matters to him as a significant foreign policy priority and institutionalising and deepening and elevating the Quad has been one of the things that he's going to be very proud of when he leads office and passes the baton to the next president of the United States,” he said.
The four-member Quad, or the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, advocates upholding a free, open, and inclusive Indo-Pacific. Beijing sees it as an anti-China grouping.