India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar is set to travel to Washington next week to attend a meeting of the Quad foreign ministers, ahead of the summit India is scheduled to host later this year.
The meeting, announced by the US State Department, will be hosted by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and will bring together Foreign Ministers Penny Wong of Australia, Iwaya Takeshi of Japan, and Jaishankar.
The gathering, scheduled for Tuesday, July 1, marks the first such engagement of the four ministers since the Pahalgam attack. It will also be the first Quad foreign ministers’ meeting since the Trump administration assumed office earlier this year.
The US State Department noted that Secretary Rubio’s first diplomatic engagement after taking office on January 21 was the previous Quad meeting, held a day after President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
According to the State Department, the upcoming meeting is expected to build on the momentum of that engagement and aims to advance the vision of a free, open, and secure Indo-Pacific. Ahead of the meeting, Jaishankar held a preparatory phone call with his Australian counterpart Wong, as posted on his official X account.
“A good discussion this morning with FM @SenatorWong of Australia before we head out for the Quad next week. Exchanged views on our bilateral cooperation and the Indo-Pacific,” Jaishankar’s post on X read.
A good discussion this morning with FM @SenatorWong of Australia before we head out for the Quad next week.
— Dr. S. Jaishankar (@DrSJaishankar) June 26, 2025
Exchanged views on our bilateral cooperation and the Indo-Pacific.
🇮🇳 🇦🇺
Before heading to Washington, Jaishankar will inaugurate an exhibition at the United Nations in New York on Monday. The exhibition, titled “The Human Cost of Terrorism”, is organised by India’s Permanent Mission to the UN and aims to highlight the global impact of terrorism.
The event is set to take place a day before Pakistan assumes the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council.
The Washington meeting is expected to lay the groundwork for the upcoming Quad summit to be hosted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The summit will bring together President Donald Trump, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of Australia, and Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba of Japan. During their meeting in February, Modi had said he looked forward to hosting Trump in India for the high-level event.
While global attention in recent months has been focused on crises in the Middle East and Ukraine, the relative calm following the latest Iran-Israel tensions has created space to renew focus on the Indo-Pacific. The Quad meeting comes at a time when regional security concerns, particularly those posed by China, remain central to the grouping’s agenda.
