Want to take ties with Australia to next level: PM Modi

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 22

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said he wants to take ties with Australia to the next level closer, especially with defence and security ties, to help secure an ‘open and free’ Indo-Pacific.

“I’m not a person who gets satisfied easily. I have seen that PM Albanese is the same. I am confident that when we are together again in Sydney we will get the opportunity to explore how we can take relations to the next level, identify areas of complementarity and expand our cooperation,” he said in an interview to The Australian.

PM Modi arrived in Sydney on Monday from Papua New Guinea and was received at the airport by Australia’s High Commissioner to India Barry O’Farell.

Asked about the AUKUS nuclear submarine project which excluded India though it is a member of the Quad, the PM said, “This is entirely Australia’s decision. They have briefed us about their assessment and the thinking behind their decision.”

PMs Modi and Albanese will address the Indian Diaspora at the Sydney Olympic Park on Tuesday for which chartered flights and buses are expected to ferry 20,000 people. A notable omission would be Balesh Dhankhar, former head of ‘Overseas Friends of the BJP’ in Australia, who has been convicted raping five South Korean women after drugging them.

On the other hand, a section of the Diaspora will screen the BBC documentary on Gujarat riots in a rented room in the Australian Parliament. A panel discussion will also be held featuring academics Mohan Dutta and Aakashi Bhatt, commentator Aakar Patel and Senator Jordan Steele John.

PM Modi will also meet Australian business leaders to take forward opportunities from the Australia-India CEO Forum held in Mumbai in March. The PM may also visit Harris Park, a Sydney suburb, also known as ‘Little India’. Over six lakh people in Australia have ethnic Indian ancestry, comprising 2.8 per cent of the country’s population.

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