India joins Quad partners in denouncing Russia’s nuclear threat against Ukraine on Friday.
Quad partners’ foreign ministers, including India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, hosted a meeting in New Delhi on Friday. The discussion was focused on Russia’s “special military operations” in Ukraine, which resulted in “immense human suffering.” The ministers also talked about their responses to the situation.
Quad Foreign Ministers, including the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi, and Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, met a day after a G20 summit in New Delhi was marked by a war of words between the Western nations and Russia regarding the Ukrainian conflict.
During Sergey Lavrov’s visit to New Delhi, Jaishankar silently condemned Russia’s nuclear threat against Ukraine in a meeting with his US, Japan, and Australia counterparts.
Lavrov accused the US of attempting to militarize the Quad and using it to escalate tensions between India and China. The four ministers jointly issued a statement after the meeting, denouncing the use or threat of nuclear weapons and emphasizing the need for a just and lasting peace in Ukraine based on international law and the UN Charter.
On January 19, Dmitry Medvedev, the Deputy Head of Russia’s Security Council and a close aide to Putin stated that Russia could initiate a nuclear war if it lost a conventional war in Ukraine.
Quad Resists Naming Russia
The joint statement issued by the Quad partners did not directly name Russia, as India resisted calls from Japan, Australia, and the US to do so. The Quad was formed primarily to counter China’s ambitions in the Indo-Pacific region and was elevated to leader-level with a virtual summit in March 2021.
Moscow has opposed India’s participation in the Quad and its cooperation with the US and other partners in the Indo-Pacific.
Lavrov had previously criticized the Quad as a “divisive” and “exclusivist” tool used by the US government to engage India in a game against China and undermine Russia’s close partnership with India.
The Quad, consisting of India, Australia, Japan, and the US, was elevated to a leader-level summit with a virtual meeting on March 12. In its first in-person meeting, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi joined US President Joe Biden and the leaders of Japan and Australia at the White House on September 24.
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