India, Thai defence ties set to get boost with Dhowan’s visit

“It is a goodwill visit, a timely visit offering scope to examine ways to even further boost the already existing close cooperation,” India’s Ambassador to Thailand Harsh Vardhan Shringla told PTI. The visit is aimed at consolidating the Navy-to-Navy cooperation, Shringla said.

India and Thailand share a common 1,000-kilometre maritime border in the Andaman Sea, where most of the trade between the two countries takes place. The Navy-to-Navy cooperation is the leading component of the defence cooperation.

Indian Navy regularly interacts with Royal Thailand Navy through Navy-to-Navy Staff Talks. They also interact in multilateral fora like Indian Ocean Naval Symposium (IONS), Western Pacific Naval Symposium (WPNS), MILAN held biennially at Port Blair.

Indian Navy and Thai Navy conduct Coordinated Patrolling (CORPAT) across International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL) twice a year. During his three-day visit, Admiral Dhowan will meet his Thai counterpart Admiral Kraison Chansuwanit. He is also scheduled to interact with the Deputy Premier, the Defence Minister and the Chief of Defence Forces.

The two sides will consider furthering cooperation between the navies including hydrography, developing comprehensive Maritime Domain Awareness through exchange of White Shipping information, increasing scope of coordinated patrolling among other such areas. White-shipping refers to commercial shipping information about movement of cargo ships.