IONS gearing to tackle piracy

NEW DELHI, April 23, 2012/ K. V. Prasad

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article3343021.ece

Sea-faring nations and littoral countries in the Indian Ocean region have decided to work to address immediate and emerging challenges in the form of Piracy, Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) and Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR).

The recent meeting of the 35-member Indian Ocean Naval Symposium (IONS) in Cape Town, South Africa, decided to farm out the task of preparing concept papers for three countries — Australia on anti-piracy, Singapore on MDA and India on HADR.

The papers are expected to be prepared in six months and after consideration, the IONS will work towards evolving Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) that would be fine-tuned with table top exercises, Assistant Chief of the Naval Staff (Foreign Cooperation and Intelligence) Rear Admiral Monty Khanna said here after returning from the meeting.

Australia was selected to prepare the paper on piracy as it is part of the international coalition that operates in the Gulf of Aden region. In the absence of a U.N.-led Force that New Delhi advocates, the Indian Navy operates under its own flag. Only since the beginning of this year, it is coordinating patrolling schedules with China and Japan.

In the backdrop of the Kochi-incident that led to the killing of two Indian fishermen, Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral Nirmal Verma underscored need to have an SOP in order to avoid recurrence of such tragic incidents and clear guidelines for merchant vessels that transit through the Exclusive Economic Zones.

In fact, India also took the opportunity to flag an issue related to piracy and is not happy that the waters closer to Indian shores in the Arabian Sea continue to be identified as a high risk area for piracy.

The label has led to international insurance companies levying higher premium, which is detrimental to merchant ships that transit through these waters. Admiral Verma said the Navy also suggested that the zones of piracy be demarcated clearly.

The Navy and the Coast Guard were actively patrolling the region and their job was commendable. Besides maintaining a naval warship in the Gulf of Aden region, they had increased their warship deployment by 80 per cent and aerial surveillance by 100 per cent, Rear Admiral Khanna said.

At the third edition of the IONS, initiative for which was taken by the Indian Navy in 2008, there has been a growth in participation, with 23 delegations from including four nations — Brazil, France, Germany and Italy — led by their Naval Chiefs taking part.

The IONS has not yet cleared the decks to grant observer status being sought by countries like the United States and the United Kingdom, even as Iran has raised objection to the clause in the Charter that is yet to be ratified.