In a major development, India and Australia on Thursday (4 June) signed a historic agreement, called ‘Mutual Logistics Support Agreement (MLSA)’, to allow access to military bases for logistics support, reports Times of India.

The agreement will facilitate reciprocal access to military logistics facilities, allow more complex joint military exercise and improve interoperability between the security forces of the two nations.

The first-ever virtual bilateral summit between India Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Australian counterpart Scott Morrison saw inking of seven agreements in total, including the agreement on access to military bases.

“India and Australia are committed to supporting a rules-based maritime order that is based on respect for sovereignty and international law, particularly the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS),” stated a joint declaration issued after the talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Australian counterpart Scott Morrison.

In addition to this, India and Australia decided to enhance their ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership and upgraded their 2+2 foreign affairs and defence dialogue to the ministerial level.

As per Hindustan Times report, other important agreements signed during the summit include, “a framework arrangement on cyber and cyber-enabled critical technology cooperation, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on cooperation in mining and processing of critical and strategic minerals, an implementing arrangement on cooperation in defence science and technology to the existing MoU on defence cooperation.”