CNS Admiral Hari Kumar visits Australia

Visakhapatnam: The Chief of Naval Staff (CNS) Admiral R Hari Kumar held talks with the Vice Admiral Mark Hammond, Chief of Navy, Royal Australian Navy (RAN), Vice Admiral David Johnston, Vice Chief of Australian Defence Forces, Greg Moriarty, Secretary of Defence, Air Marshal Robert Chipman, Chief of Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) and Air Vice Marshal Mike Kitcher, Deputy Chief of Joint Operations to boost maritime security cooperation.

During his maiden official three-day visit to Australia after assuming charge as the CNS, he held meetings with the Chief of Royal Australian Navy, among others, and they expressed commitment towards pursuing collaborative activities in several areas of bilateral convergence.

Admiral R Hari Kumar paid a visit to RAN facilities at HMAS Penguin and Hydrographic School. The CNS, accompanied by Manpreet Vohra, Ambassador of India to Australia and the Chief of Navy, RAN, interacted with the prominent members of Australian think tanks to understand and develop new maritime cooperation opportunities, highlighted the need for raising the level of synergy and focused efforts for overcoming the challenges of the maritime environment.

India and Australia share commonality of perspectives on several contemporary maritime security issues in the Indo-Pacific and have been working together closely in several bilateral and multilateral fora such as the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium (IONS), Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) and Western Pacific Naval Symposium (WPNS).

Coming on the heels of successful participation of Indian Naval Ship Satpura and one P8I Maritime Patrol Aircraft of Indian Navy in the recently concluded multilateral exercise Kakadu, hosted by the RAN at Darwin, the visit of the CNS further consolidated the strong and long-standing bilateral relations between the two countries.