Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith arrived in New Delhi on Monday on a five-day visit amid attacks on Indians in that country.
Keen to remove irritants in bilateral ties arising out of the spate of attacks on Indians in Australia, its Foreign Minister Stephen Smith on Thursday met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and apprised him of the steps being taken by his government to contain such assaults.
Australia Foreign Minister Stephen Smith has expressed satisfaction with the security measures for foreign athletes during this year's sporting events in India in the wake of the recent terror threat by a militant group.
"We have a strong view that there should be Security Council reform of the United Nations, that the Security Council should reflect the modern world, which is why we've suggested that both India and Japan should become permanent members of a reformed United Nations Security Council," the Australian foreign minister said.
Australia on Wednesday said it has apprehensions over security arrangements for the Commonwealth Games to be held in New Delhi next year but maintained that India has assured all necessary precautions will be taken.
Hours within a fresh incident of violence against Asians in his country, Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith today said they have zero tolerance for assaults on Indians or against anyone else who comes to Australia.
The 10-member ASEAN described the Indo-US nuclear deal as an extremely positive step, hoping that the two countries would be able to conclude the pact soon.
"Australia wants to take the relationship with India to the front ranks of the partnerships we have," Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said at a joint press briefing with visiting External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee after the agreements were signed in Canberra. The two countries agreed to further strengthen their relationship by forming a new body to hold yearly talks and by signing treaties to increase anti-terror efforts.
Under mounting pressure over attacks on Indians, Australia on Tuesday acknowledged that some of the recent violence against them had clearly been "racially motivated" and vowed to "punish the culprits with the full force of law".
The Indian government on Wednesday called on the Australian government to take stern action against the perpetrators of alleged racial assaults on Indians in Melbourne, Victoria.
"The Australian government fully appreciates how central India is to our future," Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said in a speech at the University of Western Australia, his alma mater, while making a strong push for closer ties in social, economic and defence sectors.
Australia's new government on Tuesday said that it will not sell uranium to India until the country signs the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Last year, the previous federal government struck an in-principle agreement with India to sell uranium to the country. The deal was to be subject to strict conditions, including guarantees that the uranium would be used for power generation only, despite India not being a signatory to the NPT.
The Australian government has handed over to India a police dossier of high-profile attacks on Indians over the past year, which reveals that nearly half of the attackers were juveniles. The dossier, prepared by the Victoria police, was handed over in recent weeks, after Foreign Minister Stephen Smith telephoned his Indian counterpart S M Krishna on January 11 to express his condolences over the murder of Indian student Nitin Garg in Yarraville.
Australia on Monday stated that Pakistan should regain India's confidence by taking action against Lashker-e-Tayiba and bringing the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks to justice.Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith, who arrived on a three-day visit to Islamabad on Monday, said Pakistan has to do 'more' and India's confidence would be 'part of the test' of whether Islamabad is doing enough to control terrorism within its borders.
The 123 agreement is mired in opposition in Indian Parliament, but analysts warned on Wednesday that if the deal took off again, the Rudd government's reversal on uranium sales could have 'quite serious' ramifications for Australia-India relations.
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Victorian Premier John Brumby have urged the Indian community to remain calm and not link three-year-old Gurshan Singh's death to attacks on Indian students and taxi drivers in Melbourne.Gurshan's body was found dumped by the side of a road in a Melbourne suburb, six hours after he disappeared from a relative's home in Lalor on Thursday.
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