By DPA
Sydney : The US and its key regional defence allies, Japan and Australia, discussed at length closer ties with Asian giant India during meetings Saturday, Australia’s foreign minister said.
President George W. Bush and prime ministers John Howard and Shinzo Abe met in Sydney ahead of the day’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders meeting. Discussion about India dominated the breakfast meeting, Australia’s Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told reporters.
The three leaders were joined by senior ministers, including Downer, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and US Trade Representative Susan Schwab.
“There was especially a lot of discussion about India, a lot of optimism about India, the importance of strengthening our relations with India,” Downer said. “I think there is a recognition that India is a coming great power … it’s a country that we all feel increasingly comfortable working with.
“It was an opportunity to talk about a range of different issues but certainly to focus on India and the importance of that country to us in the Asia-Pacific region and broader geopolitics.”
But Downer said expanding APEC to include India was not on the table for the moment.
“Nothing like that is going to happen anytime soon, we are looking more in a general sense at progressing the relationship,” he said.
Downer also said that while North Korea posed the single greatest security threat in the region, it was not the focus of great attention at the leaders’ breakfast, nor were relations between China and Taiwan.
“Of course we don’t have in Asia at the moment any major security problem outside of the North Korean question … but we have in other meetings had extensive discussions about North Korea,” said Downer.
The Australian foreign minister predicted leaders at the APEC summit were unlikely to expand their club to take in India or any other countries by lifting a leadership moratorium.
“One of the reasons for that is I think there are 11 applicants for APEC membership, India is one…It’s quite a long list and I think there is a consensus that if you were to bring one in, you’d have to bring others to balance it up,” Downer said.