New Delhi. India, Australia and France have said that they want free, open and internationally-ruled movement in the Indo-Pacific Ocean. The joint statement of the three countries has come at a time when China is continuously moving forward on its policy of occupying the maritime area and wants to stop the movement of ships of other countries by occupying the South China Sea.

Focus points were discussed in the meeting

The focus points were discussed in the meeting of officials of the three countries held on Thursday in New Delhi. According to the Ministry of External Affairs, increasing cooperation in maritime security, marine and environmental security and many other areas was discussed in this trilateral meeting.

In this meeting, the progress made on the decisions taken earlier was reviewed, and discussion points were decided for the future meetings. In future also, the three countries will keep the discussion focused on ocean and environmental security. The three countries resolved to further enhance cooperation to maintain free, open and rule-based movement on sea routes.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi made this appeal

This cooperation between the three countries is the result of the initiative taken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for maritime security in November 2019. Modi had appealed to increase cooperation between like-minded countries in the 14th East Asia Summit. The Indian delegation in the meeting was led by Joint Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs Piyush Srivastava and Joint Secretary Parmita Tripathi. While the teams from Australia and France were led by officials of their respective foreign ministries.