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Now, Australia wants to upgrade defence ties
10 Jul 2007, 0048 hrs IST,Rajat Pandit,TNN
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NEW DELHI: After years of being suspicious of India's growing military prowess, especially the expanding role of its Navy in the Indian Ocean region, Australia now wants to upgrade strategic and defence ties with India.
The emerging contours of this yet fledgling defence cooperation will be discussed when Australian defence minister Brendan Nelson comes visiting on Wednesday, with talks scheduled with his Indian counterpart A K Antony, external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee and the three service chiefs, among others.
India and Australia hope to build up on the bilateral MoU on defence cooperation signed during Australian prime minister John Howard's visit to New Delhi in March 2006.
Officials say greater interaction between the Indian and Australian navies, along with regular meetings of the newly-constituted bilateral Maritime Security Operations Working Group, upgraded military exercises and high-level exchanges are on the cards.
Significantly, the two countries are now also finalising an arrangement to share counter-terrorism, maritime security and other "classified" information. Nelson's visit, of course, comes at a time when Indian doctor, Mohammad Haneef, has been detained in Australia for alleged links to the failed car bomb attacks in London and Glasgow. And as such, cooperation in the counter-terrorism arena will figure high on the agenda.
But coming back to defence, both India and Australia share a common wariness about China and its rapidly-modernising 2.5-million-strong People's Liberation Army, coupled with the communist country's desire to spread its arc of influence in the entire Asia-Pacific region.
Nelson, incidentally, is coming to India after a visit to China, where he tried to assure Chinese defence minister General Cao Gangchuan that Australia was not ganging up militarily with US, Japan and now India to contain Beijing in the region.
China, on its part, remains deeply suspicious of this emerging so-called quadrilateral "axis of democracy" in the Asia-Pacific region.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/..._upgrade_defence_ties/articleshow/2189904.cms
10 Jul 2007, 0048 hrs IST,Rajat Pandit,TNN
Save
Write to Editor
NEW DELHI: After years of being suspicious of India's growing military prowess, especially the expanding role of its Navy in the Indian Ocean region, Australia now wants to upgrade strategic and defence ties with India.
The emerging contours of this yet fledgling defence cooperation will be discussed when Australian defence minister Brendan Nelson comes visiting on Wednesday, with talks scheduled with his Indian counterpart A K Antony, external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee and the three service chiefs, among others.
India and Australia hope to build up on the bilateral MoU on defence cooperation signed during Australian prime minister John Howard's visit to New Delhi in March 2006.
Officials say greater interaction between the Indian and Australian navies, along with regular meetings of the newly-constituted bilateral Maritime Security Operations Working Group, upgraded military exercises and high-level exchanges are on the cards.
Significantly, the two countries are now also finalising an arrangement to share counter-terrorism, maritime security and other "classified" information. Nelson's visit, of course, comes at a time when Indian doctor, Mohammad Haneef, has been detained in Australia for alleged links to the failed car bomb attacks in London and Glasgow. And as such, cooperation in the counter-terrorism arena will figure high on the agenda.
But coming back to defence, both India and Australia share a common wariness about China and its rapidly-modernising 2.5-million-strong People's Liberation Army, coupled with the communist country's desire to spread its arc of influence in the entire Asia-Pacific region.
Nelson, incidentally, is coming to India after a visit to China, where he tried to assure Chinese defence minister General Cao Gangchuan that Australia was not ganging up militarily with US, Japan and now India to contain Beijing in the region.
China, on its part, remains deeply suspicious of this emerging so-called quadrilateral "axis of democracy" in the Asia-Pacific region.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/..._upgrade_defence_ties/articleshow/2189904.cms
