TOKYO (Reuters) – New Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Tuesday said his goals were aligned with the priorities of the Quad grouping of countries, telling the leaders of the United States, India and Japan that he wanted to also discuss climate change.
Albanese, the leader of Australia’s Labor Party who was sworn in as his country’s 31st prime minister a day earlier, also said the Quad stood together for a “free and open Indo-Pacific”.
The informal grouping of countries, led by Washington, was set up as a potential bulwark against China’s increasing political, commercial and military activity in the Indo-Pacific.
Separately, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, in his opening remarks, said the Russian invasion of Ukraine represented a “frontal challenge” to the principles of the U.N. Charter and similar things should never be allowed to happen in the Indo-Pacific.
(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Kiyoshi Takenaka; Writing by David Dolan; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)
