By Andrea Shalal
ATLANTA, Oct 31 (Reuters) - US Secretary of State Marco Rubio hosted a meeting with the foreign ministers of Australia, India and Japan on Saturday, their third meeting this year, as plans take shape for a summit of the leaders of the four countries in Manila next month.
The leaders' summit, expected to occur during the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) conference in the Philippine capital on November 15-18, would be the first since 2024, and the first for US President
Donald Trump.
The first formal leaders' summits of the four countries known as the Quad did not begin until President Joe Biden took office in 2021. Trump was scheduled to attend a Quad summit in India in late 2025, but canceled the visit due to trade frictions and tariff disputes with New Delhi.
After the Quad ministers' meeting, Rubio hosted a final plenary session with foreign ministers from the Group of 20 major economies during a two-day summit in Atlanta, where the participation of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov highlighted deep rifts among G20 members.
Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand told Reuters in an interview that she would not have chosen to invite Lavrov, but she used the occasion to confront him directly about Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
"I stared him in the eye and called out Russia's further illegal invasion of Ukraine, the stealing of Ukrainian children, the targeting of Ukrainian ships in the Black Sea, all of which are reprehensible, all of which are contrary to international law and international humanitarian law," Anand said, citing her remarks during a closed-door plenary session on Friday.
Lavrov on Friday told reporters that Moscow's position on the Ukraine conflict was unchanged, and Russia could not accept Ukraine as a "military threat to the lawful security interests of the Russian Federation," according to Russian news agencies.
Rubio, speaking at a reception at the Georgia Aquarium on Friday evening, repeated his call for G20 members to cooperate where possible given today's complex economic and geopolitical challenges, including many with serious global consequences.
"Because we all face these challenges, we must all work together to address them," he said. "The future of our nations depends on our willingness to understand that while our interests may not always align, we should always seek to work together to advance them when and where they do align."
Rubio, who will hold a press conference after the meetings conclude on Saturday, said he hoped the G20 foreign ministers could lay the groundwork for a successful leaders' summit on December 14-15 at Trump's Doral golf resort near Miami.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Tom Hogue and Paul Simao)
