Verem  (Goa) Union Defence minister Niramala Sitharaman today expressed concern over the extra regional nations maintaining a near permanent presence in the Indian Ocean under some pretext or other.

She was addressing the inaugural function of Goa Maritime Conclave, an event which aims at addressing maritime challenges in the region.

“ Indian ocean has been peaceful over past few decades. However our collective decision to capitalize on this or not and how we counter the emerging challenges will significantly influence regional peace and security in the future,” she said. 

The minister said “increased militarization in the Indian ocean has manifested in two interconnected forms in the region.”

“The first is as incremental yet steady as increase in number of warships operating in this region. We have also witnessed extra regional nations maintain a near permanent presence within the region on one pretext or the other,” she said. 

Sitharaman said “in order to sustain such presence through operational turn around, these countries which are extra regional are creating naval outposts as well as dual use infrastructure in the region.”

“This sort of militarization increases the complexities for the countries of this region,” she added.

The defence minister also expressed concern about the emergence of non-state actors in the region. 

“The concept of non state actors is not something new as the countries are dealing with this issue both at land and at sea since time immemorial,” she said.

“However, the recent surge in the number of non state actors when juxtaposed with the support they enjoy from certain states their enhanced reach as well as access to the resources has brought the issue to the forefront and demands a firm action,” the minister added.

Referring to the blue economy, the minister said that the  sea bed has emerged as a futuristic and abundant source of relatively pure minerals and thereby adding to the ocean’s economic potential. 

“The progress achieved and the efforts to harness clean and renewable energy sources through off shore energy firms add a whole new dimension to possible economic and strategic impact of the ocean on countries of this region,” she said. 

She said that while it is good that the compulsion of globalization has enabled economics to shape relationships between the nation, opaqueness in strategic intent by certain nations are preventing these very relationship from evolving beyond the transactional nature.