Foreign minister S Jaishankar to visit Australia this month

Foreign minister S Jaishankar will visit Australia this month amid momentum in bilateral ties and shared concerns over Chinese ambitions in the Indo-Pacific region, ET has learnt.

In September, Jaishankar had met Australian foreign minister Penny Wong on the sidelines of India-France-Australia and India-Australia-Indonesia foreign minister trilaterals in New York. They were also part of Quad ministers meeting in New York. Earlier, the Australian deputy PM-cum-defence minister visited India. The PM had twice met his new Australian counterpart, in Japan on both occasions - first, during the Quad summit and later, during Shinzo Abe's state funeral.

The growing convergence between India and Australia has been driven by concerns over regional stability and security and a shared interest on international law and a rules-based order, Jaishankar had said in a virtual address at the Australia-India Leadership Dialogue 2022 a couple of weeks ago.


"A shared concern about trade reliability and economic volatility encouraged a partnership on the Supply Chain Resilience Initiative, along with Japan. The Tokyo Quad summit provided an opportunity to confirm, if confirmation was indeed needed, that the incoming Albanese government was just as committed to the bilateral relationship, as indeed to the Quad, as its predecessor," Jaishankar said.