New Delhi: At the seventh Indian Ocean Conference in Perth, Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar urged nations of the Indian oceans to back efforts in confronting challenges of safeguarding sovereignty, dealing with cases of disregard to maritime laws and flouting of long-standing pacts, PTI reported.
The minister's remark was widely seen as a reference to China's military activities along the Line of Actual Control.
Speaking at the conference, he also flagged concerns over unsustainable debt, opaque lending practices, unviable projects and "injudicious" choices in thinly veiled comments that came amid concerns over many countries falling into the Chinese' debt trap'.
"As we gaze at the Indian Ocean, the challenges besetting the world are on full display there. At one extremity, we see conflict, threats to maritime traffic, piracy and terrorism," Mr Jaishankar said.
"At the other, there are challenges to international law, concerns about freedom of navigation and overflights, and of safeguarding of sovereignty and of independence. Any disregard for arduously negotiated regimes like UNCLOS 1982 is naturally disturbing," he asserted.
"In between, a range of trans-national and non-traditional threats present themselves, largely visible in a spectrum of interconnected illegal activities. Instability also increases when long-standing agreements are no longer observed, with no credible justification to justify a change of stance," the minister added.
Mr Jaishankar said: "All of them, separately and together, make it imperative that there be greater consultation and cooperation among the states of the Indian Ocean."
His remarks on non-observance of long-standing agreements without credible justification came against the backdrop of the lingering eastern Ladakh border row that was triggered by China's amassing of a large number of troops along the LAC in the region in violation of existing pacts between the two sides.
In his address, Mr Jaishankar also referred to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) 1982.