Casting away the mistrust triggered by the Indian Navy's build-up in the 1980s and the Pokharan nuclear tests, India and Australia inked an accord on Wednesday to scale up maritime cooperation and military exchanges.

Coinciding with visit here by Australian Defence Minister Brendan Nelson, the first such visit in two decades, the two countries signed an 'arrangement' for greater maritime cooperation for security in the Asia Pacific region and to hold joint naval exercises.

The accord also provides for enhancing military exchanges between the two countries, especially in training their armed forces.

The far-reaching arrangement was signed by Defence Secretary Shekhar Dutt and Australian High Commissioner John
McCarthy in the presence of the defence ministers of the two countries.

It was inked after Nelson held a 45-minute meeting with his Indian counterpart A K Antony. Their talks were preceded by a meeting of top officials of the two countries.

Defence ministry sources said the signing of the arrangement would facilitate the protection of classified information exchanged to implement defence cooperation activities between the two countries, as envisaged in the memoranda of understanding on defence cooperation concluded in March 2006.

The MOU was signed during the visit to New Delhi by Australian Prime Minister John Howard