India denounced Russia’s threat to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine on Friday along with its Quad allies, Australia, Japan, and the United States.
The US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, as well as the Japanese and Australian Foreign Ministers, Yoshimasa Hayashi and Penny Wong, were welcomed by External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar in New Delhi early on Friday. They talked about how the four countries were reacting to Russia’s “special military operations” in Ukraine and the “immense human suffering” they had brought about.
A day after the G20 summit in New Delhi was marred by a verbal exchange between the western countries and Russia regarding the conflict in Ukraine, the Quad Foreign Ministers convened.
Even though Sergey Lavrov, the former Soviet Union country’s foreign minister, was also in New Delhi, Jaishankar joined his peers from Canberra, Tokyo, and Washington, DC, to obliquely condemn Russia’s threat to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
Lavrov charged that the US was attempting to militarize the Quad and using it as a platform to raise tensions between China and India.
The leaders of the four countries agreed that using or threatening to use nuclear weapons was forbidden. In line with international law, including the UN Charter, we emphasized the necessity of a thorough, just, and long-lasting peace in Ukraine. In a joint statement released following the meeting, we emphasized that the rules-based international order must honor sovereignty, territorial integrity, transparency, and the peaceful resolution of disputes.
On January 19, Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, stated that if the former Soviet Union lost its conventional war in Ukraine, it might initiate a nuclear conflict. “The loss by a nuclear power in a conventional war can provoke the outbreak of a nuclear war,” Medvedev, a close aide of Russian President Vladimir Putin, had posted on Telegram.
However, the joint statement of the Quadrilateral organizations did not explicitly mention Russia because India resisted pressure from the US, Japan, and Australia and insisted on not criticizing the former Soviet Union state.
The primary goal of the Quad’s launch by India, Australia, Japan, and the US was to counter China’s aspirations for hegemonic dominance in the Indo-Pacific area. On March 12, 2021, it was raised to the level of the leaders through a virtual meeting.
India’s collaboration with the US and its other allies in the Quad in the Indo-Pacific has been opposed by Moscow.
The US government is using the Quad as a “divisive” and “exclusivist” tool, according to Lavrov, to carry out its “devious policy” of playing games with New Delhi against China and undermining Russia’s close relationship with India.
With a virtual meeting of the leaders on March 12, India, Australia, Japan, and the US raised the Quad to the level of the leaders. On September 24, President Joe Biden of the United States, the heads of Japan and Australia, as well as Modi, met in person for the first Quad summit at the White House.
