QUAD may announce expansion of maritime pact to Indian Ocean: White House
ABP NewsWashington, Sep 21 : The QUAD summit has plans to expand the Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness initiative from South East Asia to the Indian Ocean Region, the White House said Friday. A formal announcement about the expansion will be made in Wilmington on Saturday, a senior administration official told reporters on condition of anonymity Besides the expansion, the partnership will now include "new sophisticated technologies to improve the maritime domain picture", as well as new training programmes, the official said. Another senior administration official said the expansion of the IPMDA to the Indian Ocean "provides opportunities, not just for Australia to coordinate with us in the Pacific, but also with India to coordinate more with a lot of our partners in the Indian Ocean region." US President Joe Biden will host Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of Australia and Prime Minister Kishida Fumio of Japan for the fourth in-person Quad Leaders’ Summit on Saturday, September 21.