Joint Statement on North Korea, South China Sea to be released by Quad leaders

Washington: A senior U.S. administration official announced that the United States, India, Japan, and Australia will release a joint summit statement on Saturday, featuring "some of the strongest language" regarding North Korea and the South China Sea. This move underscores the leaders' united stance against security challenges posed by Pyongyang and Beijing.

The official made the remarks in an online press briefing on Friday, a day before President Joe Biden, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese are set to attend their Quad summit in Wilmington, Delaware, on Saturday.

The fourth in-person Quad summit comes amid growing concerns about North Korea's evolving nuclear and ballistic missile threats, deepening military cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang and China's growing assertiveness in the South China Sea, reports Yonhap news agency.

"I will say that the Quad agenda always focuses on a wide range of strategic profits in the Indo-Pacific that absolutely includes considerations with respect to the PRC, including on the economic front, in the maritime space and elsewhere," the official said, referring to China by its official name, the People's Republic of China.

"But it will also include a focus on the DPRK and several other key considerations as well. I will say that I think you can expect to see in the upcoming joint statement...some of the strongest language that the Quad has ever produced, particularly on the South China Sea and on North Korea," the official added.

DPRK stands for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

The joint statement represents a "convergence of views" among the Quad leaders over security challenges in the Indo-Pacific, the official noted.

In a separate press briefing on Thursday, Mira Rapp-Hooper, the senior director for East Asia and Oceania at the National Security Council, said that the Quad leaders will discuss the North Korean security challenge as well as the deepening military alignment between the North and Russia.

In Friday's briefing, senior US administration officials said that on the occasion of Saturday's summit, the four countries will launch the first-ever Quad Coast Guard exercise and a Quad logistics network that allows the countries' militaries to share cargo space on aircraft and vessels for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief missions.

The officials also highlighted the launch of the "House and Senate Quad Caucuses" in a bipartisan and bicameral support for the Quad platform.

On Saturday, the leaders will have the Quad "Cancer Moonshot" event, a signature health security deliverable from the leaders' meeting, the officials said.

The event is an initiative to combat cervical cancer, which officials said is a preventable form of cancer, with vaccination, screening and increased treatment donated by the Quad countries.

Source: IANS