NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi today said he will visit Australia after the G20 Summit there in November as there has been no prime ministerial visit from India since 1986.
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who is on a state visit here, invited Modi to visit Australia.
“I have accepted Prime Minister Abbott’s invitation to pay a bilateral visit to Australia after the G20 Summit,” he said adding that both will try and meet each other at every available opportunity.
The G20 summit is scheduled to be held in November.
Modi said both the countries will increase dialogue at senior officials’ level, including in the political, economic and security areas.
“We will also increase our consultation and coordination in important forums like the Indian Ocean Region Association and East Asia Summit,” he said in a joint press briefing with Abbott.
Holding Modi’s hands tightly, Abbott said he was “not only pleased but touched” by the warmth of Modi’s welcome.
Asked if Australia supports India’s membership of Nuclear Supplies Group, Abbott said the fact that both countries have signed the nuclear cooperation agreement “means that we think that India is a first class international citizen and is entitled to membership of all the various clubs that goes with that”.
He said Australia was confident that India will use Australian uranium for peaceful purposes.
He said Australia, which has about 40 per cent of the world’s known uranium deposits, was open to business and “that means for coal, for uranium, for gas, for beef, dairy, wines… We are open for business”.
Abbott said he would like Australia to be in a position to provide India the energy security that India need in years and decades to come.
“Not just uranium, but obviously in coal and perhaps in gas as well,” he said.
Talking about Pakistan, he said Australia seeks good relations with it and “we hope for better relations between Pakistan and India overtime”.
“I know that Prime Minister Modi, in a sense, reached out to Pakistan upon his election and let’s hope that there will be positive developments there,” he added. Asked about the possibility of Taliban taking back large pockets of Afghanistan once the international forces pull out, Abbott said he “will be appalled and horrified at the return of the Taliban”.
He admitted “it will be a serious threat to our region as well as to Afghan people” but added that Australia would be in an advisory rather than military role in Afghanistan in future.
Talking about Iraqi terror group ISIS, he said “I don’t call it Islamic state because it is not a state. It is a death cult”.
Asked if the issue of recent al-Qaeda’s call for jihad in India would be raised during talks with Modi, he said “I would be surprised if security issues of this sort don’t come up.
Australia and India have good counter-terrorism cooperation and I think it will” grow stronger in years to come.–PTI
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