Canberra: Australia is exploring areas and issues for closer defence co-operation with India, which is likely to include maritime surveillance against terrorism and exchanges for military training of officers.

"We are exploring various issues. I met Indian Defence Minister George Fernandes a couple of weeks ago in Singapore and I had also met him last year. We discussed how we could develop a closer defence relationship in areas that may be useful.

"There are some exchanges in military training of officers and India has asked us to look at its defence industry in some specific areas," Australian Minister for Defence Robert Hill said.

"You will see more exchanges of officials and visits. In the future sometime, maybe we find value in some joint exercises and one area is maritime defence. Terrorism is a good example because states are finding they have a mutual interest and no one has got enough ships for effective maritime surveillance against terrorism. If we can work together, we can achieve a goal," he said.

"Our relationship is relatively under developed at the moment, but I think it will progress slowly and steadily. I am keen to visit India later this year or early in 2004," the Minister added.

The defence ties between India and Australia have seen a steady progress since bilateral relations were renewed in 2001.

Australian maritime commander of Navy Raydon Gates is currently in Chennai, Visakhapatnam and Port Blair, holding talks with senior Naval officials.

His visit coincides with HMAS Adelaide, Australia's guided missile frigate, which is in Chennai. The Australian ship has conducted exercises in the Bay of Bengal with an Indian patrol vessel.

Both Australia and India are seen as important components of stability in the Asia-Pacific region. As countries sharing the India Ocean realm, HMAS Adelaide's visit is seen as Australia's commitment to maintaining a Naval presence in the Indian Ocean that is in line with both countries' maritime security interests.

There has been an ongoing mutual exchange of officers for the purpose of training. An Australian officer of the rank of major and its equivalent visits the Defence Services Staff College in Wellington and an officer of the rank of colonel or above and its equivalent visits the National Defence College in Delhi. Similarly, Indian officers come to the Australian Defence College, Canberra.

In the last week of May 16, officers from the NDC, Delhi, visited Australia and Brunei as part of the overseas visits programme.

Earlier in March, India and Australia had set up a joint working group on defence cooperation during their second bilateral strategic dialogue in Canberra.

In December 2002, Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Madhvendra Singh inspected Australian naval and marine capabilities and technological strengths at various installations in Perth, Melbourne, Canberra and Sydney.

PTI