India, Australia resolve to deepen maritime security cooperation

New Delhi: Australia and India on Friday vowed to strengthen their defence and security partnership to address the shared challenges and work towards an open, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific, a region that has witnessed growing Chinese military muscle-flexing.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese carried out a detailed discussion on maritime security in the Indo-Pacific region at the first annual India-Australia Summit.

After the talks, Modi and Albanese also said that the two sides are on course to firm up a Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) as well as a migration and mobility pact that is expected to benefit students and professionals.

“I welcome significant and ambitious progress under the defence and security pillar of our relationship,” Albanese said in his media statement.

“Prime Minister Modi and I discussed the increasingly uncertain global security environment and committed to strengthening the Australia-India defence and security partnership to address shared challenges and work towards an open, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” he said.

In his media statement, Modi described security cooperation as an important pillar of the India-Australia comprehensive strategic partnership.

“Today, we had a detailed discussion on maritime security in the Indo-Pacific region, and increasing mutual defence and security cooperation. In the field of defence, we have made remarkable agreements in the last few years, including logistics support for each other’s armed forces,” Modi said.

“There is also a regular and useful exchange of information between our security agencies, and we discussed on further strengthening this,” he said.

An Australian readout said the two leaders agreed to strengthen the defence and security partnership between the two sides in support of both nations’ shared ambition for an open, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific.

It said the two leaders welcomed Australia hosting of exercise Malabar this year for the first time.

At a media briefing, Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra said Modi encouraged Albanese to avail the opportunities in the defence manufacturing sector under India’s ‘Make in India’ initiative.

“The leaders also appreciated the considerable progress that has taken place in the field of defence and security cooperation. In this context Prime Minister Modi encouraged the Prime Minister of Australia to avail of the full range of opportunities that are available in India deriving out of Make in India and Aatmanirbhar (self-reliant) programme for defence manufacturing,” he said.