Blinken: Our future is in the Indo-Pacific

On Friday (03), US Secretary of State Antony Blinken asserted that permitting Russia to continue its actions in Ukraine would send a message to aggressors worldwide.

"If we allow Russia to do what it is doing in Ukraine then that's a message to the aggressors everywhere that they may be able to get away with it too," US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at the meeting of the Quad Foreign Ministers in Delhi.

Blinken made these remarks during the Raisina Dialogue 2023 held in Delhi under the theme "The Quad Squad: Power and Purpose of the Polygon." All Quad foreign ministers were present at the event in person.

"For us the future is so much in Indo-Pacific...Even as we are rightly focussed on what is happening in Ukraine as a result of Russian aggression, not just because it matters to Ukrainians and to Ukraine and Europe, but because it matters to the entire world," Blinken added.

Regarding the Quad alliance, Blinken expressed his belief that it is a force for positive and proactive measures that serve the greater good. On Friday, India played host to the Quad foreign ministers' meeting, led by External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, and attended by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi, and Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong.

This meeting took place a day after the G20 foreign ministers meeting in the national capital.

According to the Ministry of External Affairs, the meeting provided an opportunity for the ministers to continue the discussions from their last meeting in New York in September 2022.

On Thursday, Blinken and Jaishankar met to discuss measures to alleviate the global impact of Russia's conflict in Ukraine.

During the G20 Foreign Ministers' Meet, Blinken engaged in a conversation with Jaishankar about addressing global and regional challenges. Their discussions covered a range of topics, including mitigating the global impact of Russia's conflict in Ukraine, collaborating between the United States and India in the Indo-Pacific, the successful launch of the initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET), and regional issues.

Blinken urged Sergey Lavrov, his Russian counterpart, earlier today to reverse Moscow's "irreversible decision" and resume implementing the New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) nuclear arms reduction treaty.

With inputs from ANI