'India looking to top Aussie panel to address Indian concerns'

LONDON: India is looking to a top panel set up by Australia to address the concerns of Indian students, who have been targets of spate of attacks there, the External Affairs Minister S M Krishna said today.

"The high-level Group must have been now formed and I will have to get updated from our High Commission as to what happened at the first meeting of the Group which is suppose to address the concern of Indian students in Australia," Krishna told PTI in an interview.

He said "We will have to give it a try, how that works."

The Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith had assured Krishna here on Wednesday that a high-level working group would be set up by the federal government and the government of Victoria state to study the spate of attacks on Indians in that country.

Asked to comment on the outcome of the one-day London conference on Afghanistan, Krishna said "the conference, attended by over 60 Foreign Ministers, has served a very useful purpose for international community to understand various aspects involved with reference to Afghanistan".

"I think, preparatory to this conference, all countries who were invited, have tried to formulate their own positions vs-a-vs the emerging trends in Afghanistan," he said.

Krishna said the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Foreign Secretary David Miliband "set the tone by going public in conveying to all those who mattered that India's participation was necessary because the entire neighbourhood is going to be affected by whatever happens in Afghanistan".

"I presume the Prime Minister going public is to share great concern equally with India about fighting the terror of al-Qaeda and Taliban," he said.

"India feels the conference has provided us a platform," the Foreign Minister underlined.