Modi, Morrison discuss defense partnership, bilateral ties
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Australian counterpart Scott Morrison met in Washington ahead of the Quad Summit and discussed bilateral ties. The two leaders particularly emphasized the defense partnership as a strength of democracy in the Indo-Pacific region.
Morrison described Modi as a dear and great friend of Australia and said, “We had a great discussion about our defense partnership. This particularly escalated in the form of the recent 2+2 meeting between the Defense Minister and the External Affairs Minister.
This was the first in-person meeting of the two leaders in the post-pandemic period, although they held a virtual meeting in June. He will meet again with Japanese President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Sugo at the Quad summit on Friday. Morrison revealed that he spoke to Modi a night before the announcement of a trilateral defense agreement between Australia, the UK and the US (Ocus), which will have implications for the Indo-Pacific region.
He said that our partner in India had a keen interest in Ocus. India is eager to see how it progresses. The US announced last week that it was going to provide Australia with nuclear-powered submarines. According to a statement by the Indian Foreign Ministry, Modi and Morrison reviewed the progress of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership and resolved to continue close cooperation for mutual well-being and advance their shared objective. They expressed satisfaction at the progress of the bilateral Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA), the readout said.
Morrison said Australia’s Minister of Trade and Investment Dan Tehan and India’s Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal will meet in New Delhi next week.
With a view to fighting climate change, he emphasized on cooperation in clean energy and low-emission technology.
“In our meeting today we agreed to move forward with the Low Emissions Technology Partnership, a partnership that will focus on hydrogen development, low-cost solar programs to support their energy transition,” he said.
