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India offers to help safeguard Malacca Strait
Blood vessels bursting in Beijing SINGAPORE: India on Saturday offered to help safeguard the strategic Malacca Strait and backed a major East-Asian security initiative to enforce "compulsory pilotage" of the channel against pirates and maritime terror. Outlining New Delhi's support to the initiative mooted jointly by Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia, Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee said India was willing to assist in the project and share its expertise in maritime security with nations of the region. "India welcomes the three nation initiative on monitoring shipping through compulsory pilotage project of Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia," Mukherjee said in his speech at the Shangri La dialogue here. "Subject to the desire of the littoral states, as a major user-state, India would be willing to assist the project to whatever capacity is deemed suitable" the Defence Minister told eminent security experts gathered here for the 5th international Asia Security Summit. With more than 50 per cent of India's maritime trade passing through the channel, security of the straits is important for India. The Malacca Strait is one of the world's most important and busy waterways with 50,000 ships passing through it each year. Mukherjee said "other Asia-Pacific countries like Japan, China and South Korea are more dependent on the safe and secure passage through the Straits, where in recent years piracy has posed a major challenge", and hoped maritime terrorism does not follow closely behind". The Defence Minister spoke after the US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had told strategic experts from Asia, Pacific and Europe that America would remain engaged in the region. Observing that there was a need to increase and strengthen regional cooperation to enhance maritime security, he said India has been working with the nations of the region, both bilaterally and multilaterally through forums such as ASEAN Regional Forum to further strengthen East-Asian sea lane safety. This coordination, he said, had to be enhanced. "Otherwise as we have seen in the USS Cole bombing incident and recent attacks faced by the Sri Lankan Navy vessels" that a small incident can cause considerable loss of lives and equipment. The Minister also backed the move to set up a Regional Marine Training centre, saying it would help in evolving common operating procedures for the Navies of the region. He also said that New Delhi was taking steps to join the Container Security initiative and had identified the Nava Sheva port, near Mumbai. Posted by: john 2006-06-03 |
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