India’s deep interest and engagement in the Indo-Pacific region is for seeking security and growth for all the countries in the region, Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, said at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on June 1.

Prime Minister Modi noted that India’s partnerships beyond East and South East Asia are strong and growing, Indian Embassy in Baku said in a press-release.

“We are also helping build economic capabilities and improve maritime security for our friends and partners. We promote collective security through forums like Indian Ocean Naval Symposium. We are advancing a comprehensive agenda of regional co-operation through Indian Ocean Rim Association. And, we also work with partners beyond the Indian Ocean Region to ensure that the global transit routes remain peaceful and free for all,” Narendra Modi said.

The Prime Minister noted that in the Indo-Pacific Region, India’s growing engagement is accompanied by deeper economic and defence cooperation. He went on to add that Indian Armed Forces, especially Navy, are building partnership in the Indo-Pacific region for peace and security as well as humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.  Southeast Asia is at its centre, and, ASEAN has been and will be central to its future, he said.

Prime Minister Modi emphasized that India does not see the Indo-Pacific region as a strategy or as a club of limited members.

“Inclusiveness, openness and ASEAN centrality and unity, therefore, lie at the heart of the new Indo-Pacific,” Prime Minister Modi said. He stressed that India’s own engagement in the Indo-Pacific – from the shores of Africa to that of the Americas – will be inclusive adding that India’s vision of the Indo-Pacific involves physical connectivity as well as mutual trust, transparency, consultations and respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Prime Minister Modi said that India will promote a democratic and rules-based international order, in which all nations, small and large, thrive as equal and sovereign.

“We will work with others to keep its seas, space and airways free and open; our nations secure from terrorism; and our cyber space free from disruption and conflict. We will keep our economy open and our engagement transparent. We will share our resources, markets and prosperity with our friends and partners.  We will seek a sustainable future for our planet, as through the new International Solar Alliance together with France and other partners,” he said.

The Shangri-La Dialogue is the most important regular gathering of defence professionals in the Asia-Pacific region, a vital annual fixture in the diaries of ministers and their civilian and military chiefs of staff. Since its launch in 2002 the Dialogue has built confidence and fostered practical security cooperation, by facilitating easy communication and fruitful contact among the region’s most important defence and security policymakers.