Australian Foreign Minister to visit India

Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop will be on a two-day visit to New Delhi from Tuesday during which she will call on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and meet her Indian counterpart Sushma Swaraj to take forward bilateral engagement on defence and security issues.

Australia's High Commissioner to India, Harinder Sidhu, said the visit places emphasis on India as one of Australia's top economic and security partners, a statement from the Australian High Commission here said.

"We are committed to exploring ways to expand our engagement even further," Sidhu said.

"Our countries have a dynamic and growing knowledge partnership, flourishing people-to-people links and converging political, economic and strategic interests. And there is scope for us to do much more together."

Bishop will meet Sushma Swaraj for the Foreign Ministers' Framework Dialogue to talk about "our deepening regional engagement, defence and security issues", the statement said.

She will call on Prime Minister Modi to follow up on his meeting with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull earlier this year.

Bishop will deliver the second Indo-Pacific Oration, setting out how Australia and India can work together to build peace, prosperity and a rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific, the statement said.

--IANS

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