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The members of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue or Quad understand India’s position on the Ukraine crisis and each country has its own bilateral relationships, Australian high commissioner Barry O’Farrell said on Sunday.
India is the only member of Quad, which includes Australia, Japan and the US, that has not condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or supported punitive measures against President Vladimir Putin or Russian banks and entities. India has called for respecting the territorial integrity of states and sought an immediate end to the conflict in Ukraine.
“The Quad countries have accepted India’s position. We understand that each country has bilateral relationships,” O’Farrell told a media briefing.
“And it is clear from the comments of the [ministry of external affairs and Prime Minister Narendra Modi] that he has used his contacts to call for the end of the conflict and no country will be unhappy with that,” he added.
O’Farrell’s remarks came against the backdrop of speculation about divergences between the members of Quad on taking a stronger position against Russia over the “special military operation” ordered by Putin on February 24 in support of the breakaway Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.
Modi has raised the call for an immediate end to hostilities and a return to the path of diplomacy and dialogue in his recent phone conversations with both Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Following the annual India-Japan Summit on Saturday, a Japanese spokesperson said Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida had sought greater cooperation from Modi to impress upon Putin the need to defuse the crisis in Europe. Kishida also said the Russian attack on Ukraine had “shaken the roots of the international order” and unilateral attempts to change the status quo were unacceptable in any part of the world.
In a statement issued on Friday ahead of the second India-Australia virtual summit, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he planned to discuss a range of regional and multilateral issues with Modi, including the “situation in Ukraine and its implications for the Indo-Pacific”.
At a news conference on Sunday, Morrison said Australia will continue to condemn Russia’s “unprovoked, unjustified invasion” of Ukraine and to call on Russia to immediately withdraw its forces from Ukrainian territory in line with the legally binding decision of the International Court of Justice.
Russia’s actions are a gross violation of international law and the principles that support a rules-based order that favours freedom, he said. “What happens in Ukraine does not just affect Europe. As we’re seeing here in Australia, it affects…the rules-based order upon which our own region depends,” he added.
O’Farrell noted that at the Quad leaders’ summit in February, all members had recognised that each country has a different perspective on the Ukraine crisis because of their particular bilateral relationships. While the Quad is focused on the Indo-Pacific, Morrison’s statement ahead of the virtual summit had made it clear that he wanted to discuss the implications for the Indo-Pacific, he said.
All the three other Quad members have said there will be implications in the Indo-Pacific because of the events in Europe, O’Farrell pointed out.
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