Up to participating countries to invite us: Aus envoy on Malabar trilateral exercise

Australia is open to multilateral military drills subject to invitation from other participating nations, the country's envoy Harinder Sidhu said Thursday.

The envoy said this after she was asked at an event here if there was any possibility of Australia joining India, Japan and the US for the Malabar Trilateral Naval Exercise.

Military ties between India and Australia have been on an upswing over the last few years. In 2017, there were 24 exercises between the defence forces of the two nations and this year, the number rose to 30, Sidhu said.

The armies, navies, air force and special forces from the two countries were involved in these drills.

"What you see is very high-level trust and confidence in each other. I think that level of military cooperation is unprecedented in our relationship.

"We have never taken it that far before," she said to a question at an event on 'Australia-India Relations Today'.

Responding to another question on the possibility of the Australian navy joining India, the US and Japan for the Malabar military drill, she said her country was always open to that.

"You asked about other multilateral exercises? We are always open to that but if there are exercises involving other countries, it is for those countries to invite us," Sidhu said.

India and Australia share robust defence cooperation and the navies of the two countries participate in the bilateral drill AUSINDEX. The two countries also participated in Quad, involving the US and Japan.

However, India is not so forthcoming in Australia's participation in the Malabar Exercise involving India, Japan and the US. The drill was held in June.

"We are still open to doing more (drills) in different combination," the envoy said.

When asked about progress on import of Australian uranium, Sidhu said there is a lot of engagement between India and Australian suppliers.

"There are some active discussion to take forward the export of uranium," she said.

India and Australia had signed a nuclear cooperation agreement in 2015.