Australia ready to join India in Malabar naval exercises

New Delhi Dec 13: Australia stands willing to join the Malabar naval exercises whenever the three participants invite it, the country's foreign secretary Frances Adamson said on Wednesday.

Adamson was in New Delhi for the first "2 + 2 talks" between the foreign and defence secretaries of India and Australia. The talks had focussed on the Indian Ocean and issues like maritime domain awareness, she said.

The fourth round of the trilateral India-Japan-Australia talks were held on Wednesday. These talks, she said, had looked at cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region as a whole with an emphasis on North Korea, counterterrorism and cybersecurity.

With the 2 + 2, trilateral and quadrilateral talks, which bring the United States into the fold, as well as another trilateral with Indonesia, New Delhi and Canberra interact on four "small group" geometric strategic platforms.