Kamala Harris to host a separate meeting with Quad countries

Washington - Quad members to compare notes with US vice-president after Biden meeting

US Vice President Kamala Harris will host a separate meeting with the prime ministers of three Quad countries - India, Australia and Japan - at the White House to discuss with them the important factors for democracies to go forward, officials said.

President Joe Biden will host the three prime ministers — Narendra Modi, Scott Morrison from Australia and Yoshihide Suga from Japan — for the first-ever in-person meeting of the Quad leaders in the East Room of the White House on Friday afternoon.

“After the meeting with President Biden, the Quad members will meet with Vice President Harris for a detailed discussion on basically the capacities associated with resilience in each of our countries and compare notes on what we think is important as democracies go forward,” a senior administration official said.

“I expect that the dialogue among the four leaders will take a good part of the afternoon tomorrow. There will be time for a bilateral meeting between Prime Minister Suga and the President,” the official said, adding that there will be another session with Dr Jill Biden, the First Lady.

“Those sessions, frankly, are designed to be free-flowing. I think the President has indicated that he doesn’t want to necessarily put an artificial stop to them. I think he wants to let them have sort of a natural progression,” said the official.