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Thursday, Jul 12, 2007
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First joint naval exercise with Australia in September

Sandeep Dikshit

Quadrilateral dialogue not meant to antagonise China, it says

NEW DELHI: Australia has said that its recent quadrilateral dialogue with India, the U.S. and Japan does not concern military and security issues but is confined to the economic, trade and cultural spheres.

Australia also reiterated its policy of not selling uranium to countries that have not signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) but said it was supportive of and comfortable with the ongoing civil nuclear dialogue between the U.S. and India and the latter’s willingness to separate its military and civilian reactors.

Seeking to assuage China’s concern on the recent meeting between the four countries on the sidelines of the ASEAN Regional Forum meeting in Manila, visiting Australian Defence Minister Brendan Nelson said Canberra was satisfied with its long-standing trilateral strategic partnership with the U.S. and Japan and did not wish to complicate relationships with other countries by extending it to the quadrilateral.

“There have been suggestions in some quarters that it was a quadrilateral strategic dialogue. We do not wish to have such a dialogue in defence and security matters. We have a separate bilateral arrangement [with India on defence issues]. Australia doesn’t want to do anything unnecessarily that upsets any other country. It is not seeking a quadrilateral dialogue,” he told newspersons shortly after signing an information exchange agreement with his counterpart A. K. Antony.

Dr. Nelson clarified that the information exchange agreement did not extend to transnational crimes such as the Glasgow bombings but concerned updating each other on security issues such as maritime security, peacekeeping and “fragile states.”

“Australia considers its relationship with India important in the general sense, especially in defence and security. The purpose [of the visit] is to give an increased momentum to this trend. We are also looking at increased level of engagements at the military level. In this respect, Australia for the first time will hold naval exercises in the Bay of Bengal in September. It will also involve some other countries such as Singapore and Japan.”

Discussions with Mr. Antony and the service chiefs also touched upon increased exchanges between key military personnel and joint exercises between the two air forces. “We want to ensure more Indo-Australia cooperation in maritime security especially in the Indian Ocean. We welcome that India is looking towards East Asia,” he added.

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