NEW DELHI: The Quad grouping does not need to have a separate bureaucratic set-up, says Barry O’Farrell, Australia’s High Commissioner to India. The existing resources in governments of each of the four countries are good enough to deliver as was evident in the way the first meeting of the Quad leaders was quickly and smoothly organised, he told StratNews Global Editor-in-Chief Nitin A. Gokhale on ‘The Gist’.
Here’s the transcript of what the Australian envoy said:
The Quad has come a long way since the four partners came together in 2004 to provide humanitarian assistance following that terrible tsunami. At various times, people, including commentators, have suggested that it’ll turn into an Indo-Pacific NATO. That’s not on the agenda. That’s not the wishes of the four parties. And what we’re seeing in any case, as we see with many bilateral relationships between two countries, is that it becomes instilled in our diplomatic and other systems that you don’t need to have a separate infrastructure to support it. I was amazed when we had the first leaders’ meeting of the Quad, how quickly that came together using existing resources in each of our government systems. I don’t believe, other than ongoing commitment by all countries to the goals of the Quad working together on common challenges in the Indo-Pacific, it needs to have a bureaucracy built beside it.
