Australia — AUKMIN 2011

For­eign Min­is­ter Kevin Rudd and Defence Min­is­ter Stephen Smith will host their Unit­ed King­dom coun­ter­parts For­eign Sec­re­tary William Hague and Defence Sec­re­tary Liam Fox, at the third Australia–United King­dom Min­is­te­r­i­al (AUKMIN) con­sul­ta­tions tomor­row.

“We are very pleased to be host­ing Mr Hague and Dr Fox for AUKMIN in Syd­ney at HMAS Wat­son. This is a very sig­nif­i­cant AUKMIN as it is the first vis­it by UK Cab­i­net Sec­re­taries to Aus­tralia since the elec­tion of the Cameron Gov­ern­ment in May 2010,” Mr Rudd said.

AUKMIN is the pre­mier forum for Aus­tralian and UK For­eign and Defence Min­is­ters to dis­cuss strate­gic, for­eign, secu­ri­ty and defence mat­ters of com­mon concern. 

“AUKMIN pro­vides Min­is­ters with an oppor­tu­ni­ty for frank and in-depth dis­cus­sions on glob­al chal­lenges and pro­vides an oppor­tu­ni­ty to iden­ti­fy future direc­tions for bilat­er­al cooperation.

“This forum reflects the close­ness of the Australia–UK rela­tion­ship and our aligned strate­gic out­look, which enables us to work togeth­er to find glob­al solu­tions to glob­al chal­lenges,” Mr Rudd said.

“Dis­cus­sions at AUKMIN III will focus on cur­rent for­eign, defence and secu­ri­ty pol­i­cy chal­lenges, includ­ing in Afghanistan and Pak­istan; chang­ing dynam­ics in Asia; and approach­es to counter-pro­lif­er­a­tion, counter-ter­ror­ism, space and cyber-secu­ri­ty,” Mr Smith said.

“The talks will set the direc­tion of our bilat­er­al defence rela­tion­ship, reflect­ing con­tem­po­rary, shared secu­ri­ty interests.”

AUKMIN has pre­vi­ous­ly been held in Leeds in 2008 and Lon­don in 2006. This is the first time that AUKMIN con­sul­ta­tions will be held in Australia.

Australia’s close and impor­tant rela­tion­ship with the UK is under­pinned by our shared her­itage, com­mon val­ues and close­ly aligned strate­gic out­look and inter­ests. We share a long and dis­tin­guished record of active ser­vice and coop­er­a­tion around the world, includ­ing cur­rent­ly in Afghanistan. 

Press release
Min­is­te­r­i­al Sup­port and Pub­lic Affairs,
Depart­ment of Defence,
Can­ber­ra, Australia 

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