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The Papua New Guinea Defence Force and Australian Defence Force will push for increased integration and more joint exercises under a newly signed defence treaty.
The agreement, which is the first defence treaty signed by Papua New Guinea with a foreign country, was announced during a meeting between Australian and PNG officals in Brisbane on February 20.
The agreement is designed as a legal framework upgrade to an existing Status of Force Agreement signed in 1977 between the two countries.
Australian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence Richard Marles, speaking during a press conference in Brisbane, said Papua New Guinea is Australia’s nearest neighbour and both countries have an incredibly close defence relationship.
"Consistent with the guidance that's been given to both of us by our respective Prime Ministers to enhance and build bilateral relationship between Australian Papua New Guinea, today, the Minister and I are announcing that our two countries are commencing negotiations to establish a defence treaty between Australia and PNG," he said.
"This will be a treaty with ambition. It will be the most significant defence agreement between our two countries since Papua New Guinean independence. And to that end, it is very significant that we are negotiating this in the 50th year of Papua New Guinea's independence.
"This will help our two defence forces to work much more closely together. Already, Australia's biggest defence cooperation program is in Papua New Guinea. Already, there is extensive training which occurs amongst the Papua New Guinea Defence Force in Australia. But this will enable our two defence forces to walk down a pathway of increasing integration and increasing interoperability.
"This is actually a Papua New Guinean led initiative... There are Australian personnel who spend time in Papua New Guinea as part of our defence cooperation program, and we engage in multiple exercises every year with our Papua New Guinean colleagues. And so the agreement that we are seeking to negotiate at a treaty level really will enable the evolution of that cooperation."
PNG Minister for Defence, Dr Billy Joseph, speaking at a press conference in Brisbane on February 20, said the treaty is the first time in PNG history that treaty has been signed between another foreign country
"The legal framework to make that happen is to put on the path of increasing the relationship between PNGDF and ADF, and that is by way of this treaty," according to Dr Joseph.
"I want to thank the Prime Minister Albanese and the Deputy Prime Minister and everybody that has helped us to come here, to the point where now we are talking about the treaty.
"It is really fitting that that country is Australia, because we got independence from Australia- and at the same time, we are very close to each other. We live about three kilometres apart from each other. That's the distance between Australia and PNG. And it is really important that with the geopolitics and all the different contexts that's going on, we have consciously made a decision to choose who should be our friends, and as far as the treaty is concerned. And we have many friends, and we treat those friends uniquely in different levels, but in Australia, we are, as my Prime Minister has said, tied to the hip -we are very close."
