India and Australia on Saturday agreed to further strengthen defence ties based on the “growing convergence on security issues and a shared commitment for a free, open, prosperous and rules-based Indo-Pacific region,” External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said after the 2+2 ministers meeting held in New Delhi.
Jaishankar was addressing a joint press conference along with Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne and Defence Minister Peter Dutton who participated in the 2.2 ministerial dialogue with Defence Minister Raj Nath Singh also present from the Indian side.
Both India and Australia also came out strongly against terrorism, especially following the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan, as the world today marks the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the United States.
“India and Australia share an important partnership which is based on a shared vision of a free, open, inclusive and prosperous Indo-Pacific region. As two democracies we have a common interest in peace and prosperity of the entire region,” Jaishankar said.
India and Australia, along with the United States and Japan, are members of the Quad, an informal grouping of the four large democracies in the Indo-Pacific region formed primarily to address the challenge of an increasingly powerful China.
The ministerial dialogue took place just ahead of the Indo-Pacific quad summit scheduled to be held in the US later this month.
Briefing journalists at the press conference, Defence Minister Raj Nath Singh said, “On the bilateral defence cooperation we decided to expand military engagements across services, facilitate greater defence information sharing and to work closely for mutual logistics support,”
In the context of Defence Cooperation, both sides were glad to note continued participation of Australia in the Malabar Exercises. We invited Australia to engage India’s growing defence industry and to collaborate in co-production and co-development of defence equipment, he added.
Jaishankar also said significant progress in our defence cooperation framework and we have also set out an ambitious framework to further enhance our cooperation.
He said the peaceful development of the Indo-Pacific region has been a focus of the India-Australia relationship.
“We reiterated our commitment to continue to work together for peace, stability and prosperity of all countries in the region. This would include a rules-based international order, freedom of navigation in international waters, promoting connectivity as well as respecting territorial integrity and sovereignty of all States,” he added.
During the 2+2 dialogue the issue of Afghanistan also came up as a major subject of discussion. We agreed that the international community must be united in its approach, guided by UNSC Resolution, the Australian foreign minister said.
Both Australian ministers spoke strongly against terrorism in this context and agreed with India that Afghanistan must not allow the use of its soil for terror attacks against other countries.
The Australian foreign minister also emphasised the need to ensure human rights, especially those of women are respected in Afghanistan.
