Goa Chief Minister and former union defence minister Manohar Parrikar today said "strategies about ocean" need to be evolved in correlation with other countries which have common interest in the oceans and marine trade.
Parrikar was addressing the inaugural session of a three-day conference on maritime security, organised by Forum for Integrated National Security (FINS), here.
Union Minister of State for External Affairs M J Akbar was also present at the conference.
"The strategies about ocean need to be properly evolved in correlation with many other countries which have common interest in the ocean and the trade. And this needs to be evolved over a period of time," Parrikar said.
There are times when some countries try to exert their influence, "but if world stays together, various legal provisions can be enforced or even the countries which are aggressive can be told that your economy also can be impacted," he added.
The trade through the Indian Ocean is safer now as we have managed to curb piracy, he said.
Though there were no recent reports of pirate attacks, "you cannot completely ignore the threat", he added.
"When I was thinking about the security strategies, I realised that ocean has much more problem than we think," the former defence minister said.
Apart from the security aspect, Parrikar said, "We should also look into the aspect of threat to the coastal cities due to the rising ocean level. Island cities will not exist if the current climate change continues with the same pace," he said.
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