India, Australia may ink landmark defence pact
June 02, 2020 01:37
After
years of negotiations, India and Australia are expected to sign a
landmark agreement on reciprocal access to military bases for logistics
support during an online summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and
his Australian counterpart Scott Morrison on Thursday.
Australian
High Commissioner Barry O'Farrell told reporters during an online media
briefing that the summit is expected to take the bilateral ties to a 'historic' high as the two leaders will focus on ways to further deepen
cooperation in a range of areas including trade, energy and defence.
"We have talked about what we expect to come out of the summit.
Obviously mutual logistics support agreement is one of those things.
That will make it easier for defence forces of both the countries to
conduct complex exercises like AUSINDEX," he said.
The AUSINDEX is a
bilateral naval exercise between India and Australia.
The pact will
allow militaries of the two countries to use each other's bases and
facilities for repair and replenishment of supplies besides facilitating
scaling up of overall cooperation.
India has already signed a
similar agreement with the United States, France and Singapore.
O'Farrell said
the pact will be an important stepping stone to facilitate deeper
defence engagement between the two countries.
The summit talks between Modi and Morrison were originally scheduled to take place in January.
However, they were postponed as the Australian prime minister
had to cancel his four-day state visit to India due to the raging
bush-fire crisis in his country.
Asked how he sees the virtual
summit, O'Farrell said: "It will be like a virtual interview, I
suppose, although you have two friends on either side probably asking
each other questions about the obvious issues, not just how each country
is dealing with COVID-19."
He said there have been some 'great
similarities' between the approaches of both the leaders in dealing with
the pandemic.
"Both the leaders are people's persons. They will be
talking about issues with a focus on how to work together to improve the
lives of their citizens," the envoy said.
"I think both clearly
understand that government is not just about theoretical issues, not
just about number of agreements you sign, but it is about what you can
do to help your citizens improve their lives," he said.
"In the
virtual summit between the two leaders, you will see the Australia-India
relationship reaching a historic high, matched by an ambitious agenda
by both countries on what we can achieve in the future," he said.
O'Farrell said the focus of the talks will be to boost cooperation in
areas like public health, education, science and technology cooperation,
cybersecurity and critical technology and defence.
"Over the past
months and years, we have seen India and Australia work even more
closely together on shared goals particularly in contributing to a more
secure, open, inclusive and prosperous Indo-Pacific," he said.
The
envoy said further enhancing bilateral maritime security as well as
expanding cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region would be other key
areas for talks.
Asked about US President Donald Trump's call for
inclusion of India and Australia in G7 grouping along with two other
countries, the Australian envoy said global organisations should always
be ready to adapt to realities of an ever changing world.
He also
supported Modi's call for strengthening the WHO. -- PTI