He United States Department of State confirmed the sale of 220 cruise missiles and other military hardware to Australiafor a value of 895 million dollars.
In a statement, the US department stressed the importance of this operation for “ensure peace and economic stability in the region”, he also highlighted the good movement that this sale represents for US interests on “assist our allies in developing and maintaining a strong and ready defense capability”.
For his part, he Australian Defense Minister Pat Conroyexpressed to the chain Australian Broadcasting Corporation that “this is how we promote peace and stability, putting question marks in the mind of any possible adversary”.
“We are facing the greatest strategic uncertainty since 1945″, insisted the minister. “We are facing an arms war in the regionand a responsible government like ours takes care of it by investing to the best of its ability,” he added.
This announcement is given in the same week in which Australia and the United Statestogether with the United Kingdom, signed a new military and industrial agreement in the framework of AUKUSwhich includes the sale of between three and five American nuclear submarines to Canberra and a program to build a new type of submarine for the British and Australian navies using American technology.
Biden stressed that this agreement “attests to the ancient ties” between the three countries and underlined its “commitment” to a “free and open” Indo-Pacific.
“I want to make it clear to everyone from the beginning that these submarines do not have nuclear weaponsbut they have a nuclear engine. Australia is a state that is proud of not having nuclear weapons and he wants to keep it that way,” Biden added.
For his part, the Australian ‘premier’ Anthony Albanese stated that “AUKUS is our way of facing the future” and recalled the “common tradition of service to the cause of peace and sacrifice in the name of freedom”. “We respect and pay homage to our past and with the AUKUS we look to the future.” And he added: “It is the largest single investment in Australia’s defense capability in our entire history.”
“The first British submarines built to this design will be delivered in the late 2030s. (…) and the first Australian submarines will follow in the early 2040s,” a British statement said.
Under the agreement, they will also deploy American submarines and British in Western Australia to help train Australian aircrews and bolster deterrence.
The goal of the United States is to begin these rotary deploymentss with a single submarine from 2027 and, within a few years, increase the number to four US and one British submarine, he explained.
The agreement, as well as the collaboration between these three countries, did not please China, which considers that harms “peace and stability in the region”, in the words of the Chinese delegation to the UN.
(With information from Europa Press and Reuters and EFE)
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Source-www.infobae.com