Smita Sharma

Two decades since India -- then facing heat from western nations in the aftermath of nuclear tests -- signed its first strategic partnership with France in 1998, the partners on Saturday stepped up cooperation in the Indian Ocean significantly.

French President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in restricted and delegation-level talks agreed upon a reciprocal logistics agreement between the respective armed forces as well as a separate joint strategic vision document on the Indian Ocean region. This is along the lines of a vision document announced with US in 2015 on the Indo-Pacific.

The agreement with France will facilitate authorised port visits by naval vessels, and reciprocal logistics support during joint exercises, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.

"I consider today's agreement of the reciprocal logistics support between our armies as a golden step in the history of our close defence cooperation. Second, both of us believe that in future the Indian Ocean region will play a very important role in the happiness, progress and prosperity of the world," said PM Modi.

With China expanding military bases in Indo-Pacific from Hambantota to Djibouti , the two countries shared their concerns on respect of international law by all States, in particular freedom of navigation and overflight. India has a coastline of 7,500 km, more than 1,380 islands and 2 million sq km of Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in the region. While France has a military base in Reunion island and 1.6 million of its citizens reside in territory owned in the Indo-Pacific, including 9.1 million sq km of EEZ. Indian and French space agencies will also now provide end-to-end solution for detection, identification and monitoring of vessels in the region.

"We do not want militarisation of the region but our partnership will add to the stability of the region," remarked Macron.

Overall 14 agreements were exchanged between the two sides, including exchange and reciprocal protection of classified or protected information and finding a way forward to expedite the stalled Jaitapur nuclear power plant contract to be built by French state controlled company EDF. Once installed, it will be the largest nuclear power plant in the world, with a total capacity of 10,000 MW. Transfer of technology, guaranteed fuel supply for the plant and liability issues have remained sticking points in negotiations that began in 2009.

On counter terrorism, the joint statement names groups, including Al Qaeda, Daesh/ISIS, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Hizbul Mujahideen, Lashkar-e-Toiba, with an agreement to strengthen counter-terrorism efforts in multilateral fora such as UN, FATF (Financial Action Task Force) and G20 among others.

Courtesy: Tribune News Service, New Delhi, March 10, 2018