BY MAVIS N PODOKOLO
The United Kingdom has defended the AUKUS deal to arm Australia with nuclear-powered submarines.
Speaking to local media in an invitations-only session yesterday at the SIBC, United Kingdom Foreign Secretary the Rt Hon James Cleverly MP said the AUKUS deal is not aimed at any country but acts as protection to future threat.
In March this year, AUKUS (Australia, United Kingdom & United States), a military pact between the countries established in September 2022, announced the pathway towards Australia getting nuclear-powered submarines with cutting edge technology as early as 2030.
This course of action, as well as the creation of AUKUS, is a response by the three countries to China’s heightened presence and engagements in the Pacific.
Cleverly however insists that AUKUS and the plan to arm Australia with SSN-AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines is an act of deterrence.
“I think it is really important that people understand that the AUKUS programme is not a nuclear weapons programme so the submarines that we would be building with the United States of America and Australia are conventionally armed.
“So this is about the UK, USA and Australia and our friends are protected against threats that at the moment we still don’t know necessarily that might come in the years to come,” he said.
Cleverly explained the power systems are the proportion systems or nuclear-powered are conventionally armed submarines and every country in the world has the right to create defence structure for its self
“Self-defence structures are not necessarily aimed at any particular country or future program that submarine programmes are many decades long in the planning and execution.
“This is about binding our three very close friends together,” he said.
In September 2021 Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States announced AUKUS – a new security partnership that will promote a free and open Indo-Pacific that is secure and stable.
