India today conveyed to Australia its eagerness to conclude negotiations for early implementation of the bilateral nuclear deal besides pushing for joint production of defence equipment.
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Defence Ministry officials have confirmed the visit of Australian defence minister Kevin Andrews, but is tight-lipped on the visit of his French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian, who is likely to be in Delhi in later half of the week to finalise an inter-governmental agreement on the purchase of 36 Rafale jets.
“India is the emerging democratic super power of Asia”. Andrews, accompanied by Australian High Commissioner to India, Patrick Suckling, called on Union Foreign Minister, Sushma Swaraj, in New Delhi on Tuesday (September 01). “I look ahead to figuring out a variety of latest concepts to improve our present defence cooperation at this yr’s talks”.
His India visit comes close on the heels of the first bilateral naval exercise between India and Australia later this month.
Kelvin Andrews is scheduled to hold a series of meetings with the top leaders of India including Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“This dialogue provides an opportunity for Defence Minister Parrikar and I to set the direction of our bilateral defence engagement in line with the expectations of the Framework. It is a strong signal of both countries? commitment to building defence relations”. Along with the US and Japan, Australia and India have also been a part of an ad hoc security bloc “pacific quadrangle”, something China has resented as a measure to counter its military might.
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Quoting Abbott that “it was the time to turn the warm friendship, the long history of the two nations into something meaningful”, Andrew said, “This is our challenge and it is our task”.
