India, Australia underscore maritime freedom and supply chain security in high-level talks

Both sides affirmed the importance of enhancing cooperation with regional partners to help maintain a free, open, peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific.

New Delhi: India and Australia on Monday underscored the importance of freedom of navigation, overflight and unimpeded maritime trade amid disruptions in energy supply chains following the West Asia crisis as well as concerns over China's increasing assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific.

These issues figured prominently during wide-ranging talks between Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Australian Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles in New Delhi.

The two ministers affirmed the importance of enhancing cooperation with regional partners to help maintain a free, open, peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific, while emphasising the strategic importance of defence industrial collaboration and engagement between India and Australia.

Following the talks, Singh and Marles announced that the two countries would begin developing a Memorandum of Understanding regarding the provision of defence articles and defence services as the next step in deepening defence industrial collaboration.

"The ministers discussed advancements in bilateral maritime security cooperation and efforts to finalise the Joint Maritime Security Collaboration Roadmap," a joint statement said.

It said Singh and Marles agreed to progress the collaborative maritime domain awareness activities by maritime patrol aircraft and explore opportunities to enhance undersea domain awareness.

"The ministers affirmed the importance of enhancing cooperation with regional partners to help maintain a free, open, peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific," according to the statement.

"The ministers underscored the importance of freedom of navigation and overflight, and their strong support for unimpeded trade in the region and other lawful uses of the sea consistent with international law, particularly the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)," it said.

Singh and Marles also underlined the strategic importance of India-Australia defence industrial collaboration and engagement and welcomed Canberra's first defence trade mission to India.

They agreed to explore further exchanges, including through the Joint Working Group on Defence Industry, Research, and Materiel.

The two ministers welcomed the growing strategic convergence between Australia, India, Japan and the United States in the Indo-Pacific and reaffirmed their commitment to enhancing collaboration on maritime domain awareness to increase interoperability among the partners.

Singh and Marles expressed strong support for the Quad Indo-Pacific Maritime Surveillance Collaboration (IPMSC) initiative, to be implemented initially in the Indian Ocean Region as well as through subject matter expert exchanges and tabletop exercises.

In a social media post, Singh described his meeting with Marles as "excellent". "Together we reviewed the full range of bilateral defence cooperation and discussed ways and means to enhance it further. The India-Australia Defence Partnership is poised to make steady progress in the years to come," he said.