Sydney : The India-Australia Joint Working Group on Counter-Terrorism convened its 13th meeting in person. Mr Mahaveer Singhvi, Joint Secretary for Counter-Terrorism at India’s Ministry of External Affairs, and Mr Roger Noble, Ambassador for Counter-Terrorism at Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, led respective delegations of experts to discuss the two countries’ ongoing counter-terrorism cooperation.
Both parties reaffirmed their commitment to work together and coordinate on this crucial aspect of the India-Australia Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.
India and Australia both condemned terrorism in all of its forms and manifestations, emphasising the importance of bolstering international collaboration in order to confront terrorism in a comprehensive and long-term manner. Both sides criticised the cross-border use of terrorist proxies.
India and Australia emphasised the critical need for all governments to take prompt, continuous, verifiable, and irreversible steps to guarantee that no territory under their control is utilised for terrorist activities and to bring the perpetrators of such attacks to justice as quickly as possible. Australia condemned terrorist assaults in India, including the 26/11 Mumbai, Pathankot, and Pulwama attacks, and reaffirmed its support for the Indian people and government in the global fight against terrorism.
Both sides reaffirmed their commitment to work closely together to address these problems, and they discussed methods to increase engagement between their respective counterpart agencies to advance counter-terrorism interaction, collaboration, and information sharing.
The two sides also addressed measures to improve counter-terrorism cooperation in international fora such as the UN, G20, GCTF, ARF, IORA, and FATF, as well as other Quad partners. Australia expressed interest in hosting India at the next Quad Counter-Terrorism Tabletop Exercise in October 2022, while India welcomed Australia’s involvement in the proposed No Money for Terror Conference in New Delhi later that year.
India and Australia discussed different areas of counter-terrorism cooperation, including counter-terrorism.
This story is reported by – Raj Suri (Sydney)
Image Credit – Twitter of Indian Embassy in Canberra.
