EAM Jaishankar to attend Indian Ocean Conference in Australia's Perth on 9-10 February

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will travel to Australia’s Perth to attend the 7th Indian Ocean Conference on 9-10 February, the ministry said in a statement on Thursday.

Jaishankar would address the inaugural session of the conference, along with Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong and her Singaporean counterpart Vivian Balakrishnan.

“The ‘Indian Ocean Conference’ is a flagship consultative forum for countries in the region, organised annually by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) in association with the India Foundation,” said MEA in the statement.

“The seventh edition of the conference is being held in Perth on February 9 and 10 in association with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade of the Australian government along with Singapore’s S Rajaratnam School of International Studies and Perth-US Asia Centre,” the  statement added.

The theme of the edition of the conference is “Towards a Stable and Sustainable Indian Ocean”.

“The conference will bring together delegations led by ministers from over 22 countries and senior officials from 16 countries and six multilateral organisations,” the MEA said in the statement.

“The conference will also witness the participation of over 400 social and corporate leaders, policy practitioners, scholars, professionals, and media personnel from about 40 countries,” it added.

Since its debut in 2016 in Singapore, the Indian Ocean Conference has played an important role in bringing together countries and principal maritime partners of the region together on a common platform to deliberate upon the prospects of regional cooperation for Security and Growth for All in the Region (SAGAR), it added.

With inputs from agencies