Strongly support India's G20 presidency: Australia's foreign minister

Ahead of her visit to India, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong on Monday said Canberra is looking forward to hosting Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the Quad leaders' meeting later this year.

Wong will be in Delhi to attend the G20 foreign ministers' meet on March 1 and 2 as well as to participate in the Raisina Dialogue, India's premier conference on geopolitics and geoeconomics.

The Australian foreign minister said Canberra "strongly supports" India's G20 presidency and welcomes its ambitious, action-oriented agenda for the grouping under the "One Earth, One Family, One Future" theme.

"This will be my first visit to India as foreign minister, and I look forward to meeting my counterparts at the G20 Foreign Ministers' Meeting in New Delhi," Wong said in a statement.

 

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is also set to make his maiden trip to India early next month with an aim to boost the overall bilateral engagement in a range of areas, including trade, investment and critical minerals.

"Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Minister for Trade and Tourism Don Farrell and Minister for Resources Madeleine King will travel to India over the next month, and later this year, Australia looks forward to hosting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he attends the Quad leaders' meeting," Wong said.

Australia is scheduled to host a Quad leaders' summit later this year to review the overall cooperation in diverse areas among the member countries of the four-nation coalition.

Besides India and Australia, the other members of the grouping are the United States and Japan.

The previous edition of the Quad summit took place in Tokyo in May last year.

"Australia strongly supports India's G20 presidency and welcomes India's ambitious, action-oriented G20 agenda, under the theme 'One Earth, One Family, One Future'," Wong said.

"I look forward to working with my counterparts on how we can address contemporary international challenges, including strengthening the multilateral system, food and energy security, and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief," she added.

"While in New Delhi, I will also attend the 2023 Raisina Dialogue, India's premier forum for addressing the most challenging issues facing our regional and global community," the minister said.

Wong is also scheduled to visit Malaysia.

The Australian foreign minister said she is visiting the two countries to advance Australia's bilateral relationships and promote its interests in a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific region.

The ties between India and Australia have been on an upswing in the last few years. The India-Australia Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (ECTA) came into force in December last year and is expected to facilitate significant expansion of two-way trade.

The defence and security ties between India and Australia have also been on an upswing in the last few years.

In June 2020, India and Australia elevated their ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership and signed a landmark deal for reciprocal access to military bases for logistics support.

The Mutual Logistics Support Agreement (MLSA) allows the militaries of the two countries to use each other's bases for repair and replenishment of supplies, besides facilitating scaling up of overall defence cooperation.

In August last year, four Sukhoi-30 MKI fighter jets and two C-17 heavy-lift aircraft of the Indian Air Force (IAF) joined a 17-nation air combat exercise in Australia.

More than 100 aircraft and 2,500 personnel from Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Indonesia, India, Japan, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the Philippines, the Republic of Korea, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Thailand, the US and the United Kingdom participated in the exercise in Australia's Northern Territory.

Australia is set to host the Malabar naval exercise later this year. It will involve the navies of India, Australia, Japan and the US.