By Kirsty Needham
(Reuters) – United States President Joe Biden will briefly visit the Pacific islands nation of Papua New Guinea in May, a Papua New Guinea official said on Thursday.
Biden will stop in the capital Port Moresby for three hours on his way to Australia to attend the Quad leaders summit, a spokesperson from the PNG Prime Minister’s office told Reuters.
A Pacific islands source told Reuters Biden is expected to meet with over a dozen Pacific islands leaders during his May visit to Port Moresby.
The Quad summit is being held in Sydney on May 24, with the leaders of India, Australia, Japan and the United States attending, Australia’s government has said.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is also expected to visit Papua New Guinea on May 21, en-route to Australia, to meet the Pacific island leaders, Papua New Guinea’s government has previously announced.
The PNG Post Courier newspaper reported on its front page on Thursday that the Biden stopover would be the first visit by a United States president.
The United States embassy in Canberra referred questions to the White House, which did not immediately respond.
(Reporting by Kirsty Needham in Sydney; Editing by Alasdair Pal and Lincoln Feast.)
