Quad opposes N-threat in backdrop of Ukraine

The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad, on Friday denounced the threat of use of nuclear weapons in the context of the Ukraine conflict as “inadmissible” and opposed unilateral actions to change the status quo or increase tensions in the South and East China Seas.

- Rezaul H Laskar

A joint statement issued after a meeting of the foreign ministers of Quad, which groups India, Australia, Japan and the US, unveiled new initiatives to ramp up cooperation to tackle key challenges across the Indo-Pacific region. This included the creation of the Quad Working Group on Counter-Terrorism to tackle new and emerging forms of terror.

External affairs minister S Jaishankar chaired the meeting with Australian foreign minister Penny Wong, Japan foreign minister Yoshimasa Hayashi, and US secretary of state Antony Blinken, a day after a stormy gathering of G20 foreign ministers was unable to agree on a joint communique because of deep divisions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Quad foreign ministers discussed the responses to the Ukraine conflict and “concurred that the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible”, according to the joint statement.

The ministers “underscored the need for a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in Ukraine in accordance with international law, including the UN Charter”, and said the rules-based international order “must respect sovereignty, territorial integrity, transparency and peaceful resolution of disputes”.

Participating in a panel discussion with his Quad counterparts at the Raisina Dialogue after the meeting, Blinken said: “If we allow with impunity Russia to do what it’s doing in Ukraine, then that’s a message to would-be aggressors everywhere that they may be able to get away with it too.”