At IORA Summit, India to lay stress on rights of navigation

NEW DELHI: Connectivity, open maritime trade and rights of navigation are the areas that India will lay emphasis on during the Summit of the 21-nation Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) to be held in Jakarta on Tuesday.

Vice President Hamid Ansari, who will embark tomorrow on the two-day trip of the Indonesian capital to attend the Summit, is also expected to pitch for cooperation among the think tanks of the member countries to evolve common strategies to meet the conventional and non-conventional threats, official sources said here today.

The theme of the Summit is 'Strengthening Maritime Cooperation for a Peaceful, Stable and Prosperous Indian Ocean'.

At the meeting, a declaration on countering violent extremism is expected to be adopted along with the IORA Concord and an action plan.

"The IORA Concord is a strategic document which sets the ways and means to strengthen the regional architecture in the Indian Ocean Rim and elevate IORA as a regional cooperation," according to an official statement from the IORA Secretariat.

IORA is a regional forum which aims at facilitating and promoting economic co-operation, bringing together, inter-alia, the representatives of the Member States' governments, businesses and academia.

The association comprises India, Australia, Bangladesh, Comoros, Indonesia, Iran, Kenya, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mauritius, Mozambique, Oman, Seychelles, Singapore, Somalia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.

It also has seven Dialogue Partners -- the US, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Japan and the UK.