Quad's 3rd ministerial meeting today, to discuss work towards inclusive Indo-Pacific

The third Quadrilateral Security Dialogue or Quad meeting will be held on February 18 to exchange views on regional and global issues especially practical areas of cooperation towards maintaining a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific region.

According to an official statement issued by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), the third India-Australia-Japan-USA ministerial meeting will have the participation of the respective Foreign Ministers.

"The Ministers will exchange views on regional and global issues especially practical areas of cooperation towards maintaining a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific region," the statement said.

The leaders will also discuss ongoing efforts to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, addressing global climate change and other issues of mutual interest," the statement added.

The meeting will be in continuation of the views exchanged in the last quad meeting held in Tokyo on October 6 last year.

The Quad initiative is expected to put an end to the economic coercion tactics of China and cooperation with Japan and other allies will checkmate Chinese development assistance and its hegemony in the region.

Earlier, The Japan Times reported that for the first time under the Quad framework, the foreign ministers of the four countries met in New York in 2019. The four countries held another meeting last year in Tokyo during the COVID-19 pandemic.During the October meeting, then-US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has reprimanded the dragon (China) for using its economic power to increase its hegemony over the neighbouring countries in South Asia.Pompeo brought to the forum a denunciation of China's "exploitation, corruption, and coercion" of neighbouring countries. He said, "This is for the soul of the world. This is about whether this will be a world that operates in this sense that we're on a rules-based international order system or one that's dominated by a coercive totalitarian regime like the one in China."

( With inputs from ANI )