Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday held bilateral talks with his Australian counterpart, Scott Morrison, in Washington ahead of the highly anticipated Quad Summit. This was the first in-person meeting between the two leaders after the coronavirus outbreak. Both the PMs reviewed pro exchanged views on regional developments and the forthcoming Quad meeting.

“Modi and Morrison reviewed progress since the last leader’s summit that was held virtually in June 2020, and they resolved to continue their close partnership and cooperation for the mutual wellbeing of both sides,” India’s Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla told reporters.

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The leaders also focused on the need for the international community to address the issue of climate change on an urgent basis as Prime Minister Modi highlighted the need for a broader dialogue on environment protection, the statement said.

During the meeting, Modi and Morrison also discussed a broad range of issues of bilateral, regional and global importance, and shared their mutual objective of an open, free, prosperous and rules-based Indo-Pacific region, a statement by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said.

Several global leaders, including US President Joe Biden, have been talking about the need to ensure a free, open and thriving Indo-Pacific in view of China’s rising military manoeuvring in the region.

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This came as China claims nearly all of the disputed South China Sea, though Taiwan, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam all claim parts of it. Beijing has built artificial islands and military installations in the South China Sea.

Coming back to the meet, after the bilateral talks, both the leaders took to Twitter to share his experience.

“Great to meet with my good friend and a great friend of Australia, Indian PM Narendra Modi during my visit to the US,” Morrison tweeted.

“A wide-ranging and productive discussion ahead of the first in-person Quad meeting as we look to further deepen the partnership between our two countries,” Morrison said.

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Prime Minister Modi in a tweet said, “It is always wonderful to interact with my good friend, PM @ScottMorrisonMP. We had wide-ranging deliberations on strengthening cooperation in the fields of commerce, trade, energy and more.”

According to the MEA statement, in their meeting, Modi and Morrison reviewed the ongoing negotiations on a bilateral Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) and welcomed the visit to India by former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott as Morrison’s Special Trade Envoy for India, and noted the commitment of both sides to achieve an early harvest announcement on an interim agreement by December 2021.

The last bilateral meeting between Indian and Australian prime ministers was the Leaders’ Virtual Summit held on June 4 last year when the Strategic Partnership between India and Australia was elevated to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.

The Modi-Morrison meet came just a week after both the leaders had a telephone conversation to review the rapid progress in the India-Australia Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.

Modi and Morrison agreed that “as two vibrant democracies in the region, the two countries needed to work closer together to overcome the challenges in the post-pandemic world, inter alia to enhance supply chain resilience,” the MEA said.

“Both leaders lauded the immense contribution of the Indian diaspora to Australia’s economy and society, and discussed ways to enhance people to people ties,” the statement added.

Prime Minister Modi also invited Morrison to visit India.

“The Prime Minister mentioned that the Indian community was very well looked after during the COVID crisis in Australia. He especially mentioned that to the Prime Minister and there was an appreciation of the contribution of the Indian diaspora in Australia,” Shringla said.

Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Arindam Bagchi termed the meeting as “another chapter in our Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with Australia”.

The meeting assumes significance as External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on September 11 held the ‘two-plus-two’ talks in New Delhi with their Australian counterparts Marise Payne and Peter Dutton.

In response to a question, Shringla said that Prime Minister Morrison did briefly mention rationale from the Australian side in seeking to initiate the AUKUS Alliance.

“He felt that the technology that they received was appropriate and there was a brief discussion in that regard,” he said.

In a tweet, the prime minister’s office described it as advancing friendship with Australia. “They discussed a wide range of subjects aimed at deepening economic and people-to-people linkages between India and Australia,” the PMO tweeted.

The AUKUS partnership, seen as an effort to counter China in the Indo-Pacific, will allow the US and the UK to provide Australia with the technology to develop nuclear-powered submarines for the first time.

Australia said its decision to join a security alliance with the US and the UK is aimed at developing capabilities that can contribute along with India and other countries in deterring behaviour that threatens the peace and security in the Indo-Pacific.

In the first reaction from India on the contentious alliance, Shringla on Tuesday said that the new security agreement among the US, the UK and Australia is neither relevant to the Quad nor will have any impact on its functioning, and they are not groupings of a similar nature.

Shringla said while the AUKUS is a security alliance among the three countries, the Quad is a plurilateral grouping with a vision for a free, open, transparent and inclusive Indo-Pacific.

The Quad comprises India, the US, Japan and Australia.

US President Biden is hosting the first in-person Quad summit at the White House on September 24 to be attended by Modi, Morrison and Japan Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga.

Developments in Afghanistan, the COVID-19 pandemic and ways to expand cooperation for a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific are set to be the central focus of the four-nation grouping Quad.

France reacted angrily to the formation of the new AUKUS alliance as it resulted in Paris effectively losing a multi-billion dollar deal to build 12 conventional submarines for Australia. France is also upset over its exclusion from the alliance.

China has also slammed the formation of the AUKUS.