India, Australia to boost ties in first 2+2 ministerial talks this week

INTERNATIONAL DESK: India and Australia plan to additional crank up their bilateral defence ties with extra fight workouts, strengthening cooperation on maritime safety and intelligence-sharing, at the same time as additionally they work along with the US and Japan within the ‘Quad’ strategic grouping in face of China’s aggressive behaviour within the Indo-Pacific.

Defence minister Rajnath Singh will meet his Australian counterpart Peter Dutton on Friday in New Delhi to debate particular measures to additional develop the bilateral defence cooperation.

This will probably be adopted by the 2 defence ministers becoming a member of international minister S Jaishankar and his counterpart Marise Payne for the primary ‘two-plus-two’ ministerial dialogue between the 2 nations on Saturday.

“Defence Ties with Australia have gained a lot of momentum after the relationship was upgraded to a ‘Comprehensive Strategic Partnership’ in June 2020. Several new steps and exchanges are being discussed,” an official mentioned on Monday.

With Australia now turning into a everlasting member of the quadrilateral ‘Malabar’ naval train, the 25th version of which was carried out off Gaum within the western Pacific late final month, Dutton could be very eager on India becoming a member of his nation’s largest biennial wargames referred to as ‘Talisman Sabre’ in 2023, as was earlier reported by TOI.

Australia believes it’s going to additional consolidate the Quad, which has declared its agency intent to discourage any “coercion” within the Indo-Pacific, because the train already options the US and Japan in addition to different nations just like the UK, Canada, South Korea and New Zealand.

On Monday, India and Australia additionally kicked off the 4th version of their naval drills ‘Ausindex’ off Darwin. While India has deployed guided-missile frigate INS Shivalik and anti-submarine warfare corvette INS Kadmatt for the train, Australia is collaborating with frigate HMAS Warramunga and submarine HMAS Rankin in addition to F-18A fighter jets and P-8A maritime patrol plane.

“Australia and India are comprehensive strategic partners. We share a commitment to increasing the regularity and complexity of our military training so we can be confident in our ability to work effectively to respond to the maritime security needs in our region,” mentioned Australian fleet commander Rear Admiral Mark Hammond.

“Each time our nations come together, we develop further maritime interoperability by exercising more involved warfare serials demonstrating our strong commitment to an open, secure and prosperous Indo-Pacific region,” he added.

Indian Eastern Fleet commander Rear Admiral Tarun Sobti, in flip, mentioned, “This exercise will further strengthen the partnership and interoperability with the Australian navy in the Indo-Pacific. We’re looking forward to adopting the best practices and building on the warfare training standards achieved in the Malabar drills.”