US President Joe Biden is set to hold a virtual summit with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Israel Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. The summit will be held during his visit to West Asia from July 13th to 16th.
According to a US official the new grouping will be called “I2U2” — “I” for India and Israel and “U” for the US and UAE. It must be remembered that a meeting of the foreign ministers of the four countries took place during Indian External Affairs minister S Jaishankar’s visit to Israel. This time the meeting has been upgraded and will be attended by the heads of state of the four nations.
“The visit will also focus on Israel’s increasing integration into the region, both through Abraham Accords with UAE, Morocco, and Bahrain; through deepening ties between Israel, Jordan and Egypt; and also, an entirely new groupings of partners, including Israel, India, UAE, and the US, what we call I2U2. Importantly, some of these new partnerships reach beyond the Middle East, and in this regard, the President will hold a virtual summit with I2U2 heads of state for discussions of the food security crisis and other areas of cooperation across hemispheres where UAE and Israel serve as important innovation hubs,” said a US official.
This new India, Israel, US and UAE grouping first met in 2021 and Ahmed Albanna, Ambassador of UAE to India, had referred to the new grouping as the ‘West Asian Quad’.
The Biden administration is responsible for launching or upgrading several initiatives such as AUKUS (Australia, UK and US) and Quad (US, Australia, India and Japan).
What is I2U2?
I2U2 is a grouping that includes India, Israel, USA and UAE. According to a White House update, “the meet is being held by the heads of the four nations to discuss food security crisis and other areas of cooperation across hemispheres where the UAE and Israel serve as important innovation hubs”.
