The meeting between top diplomats of the Quartet including Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar, Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is the group's 3rd meeting at this level since September 2024.
The Foreign Ministers' meeting of the Quartet took place on May 26 in India and the group announced the first joint infrastructure project: Construction of a seaport in Fiji.
We will cooperate on seaport infrastructure, especially to solve the port capacity shortage in the Pacific island nations. We announced a cooperation plan with Fiji," Mr. Rubio said.
The US Secretary of State also noted that this will be "a practical proof of the Quartet's ability to jointly provide high-quality and well-resistant infrastructure.
We are beginning to show tangible achievements and results. The US is deeply committed to this partnership. This is an important and fundamental link in the US's global strategy," Foreign Minister Rubio emphasized.
Mr. Rubio said that the Quartet has agreed to launch an initiative on energy security in the Indo-Pacific region, and at the same time build a framework for strategic mineral cooperation.
This framework will orient the use of economic policy tools and investment coordination to strengthen the strategic mineral supply chain, including exploitation, processing and recycling.
This move may be particularly important to Japan after China stopped exporting some minerals to serve the aerospace, defense and semiconductor production industries to this country.
In previous meetings, the Quartet has launched many initiatives to maintain free and open maritime order in the Indo-Pacific region, including strengthening information gathering on maritime activities.
Foreign ministers did not comment on the possibility of holding a Quartet summit this year. However, last weekend, Mr. Rubio said that diplomats would promote a leadership meeting at the end of the year.
