SEEKING COMMON GROUND: Panetta (left) and Smith walk to a wreath laying ceremony at the State War Memorial in Kings Park in Perth. — AFP photo
PERTH, Australia: The United States military will station a powerful radar and a space telescope in Australia as part of its strategic shift towards Asia, the two countries announced yesterday.
US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta described the deal as a “major leap forward in bilateral space cooperation and an important new frontier in the United States’ rebalance to the Asia-Pacific region”.
The transfer of the C-band radar “will add considerably to surveillance of space debris in our part of the world”, Australian Defence Minister Stephen Smith told a news conference.
The plan, unveiled at annual strategic talks between the two nations, calls for the first deployment of a US Air Force C-band radar in the Southern Hemisphere, allowing the Americans to better track space debris well as Chinese space launches, senior US defence officials said.
“It will give us visibility into things that are leaving the atmosphere, entering the atmosphere, really all throughout Asia,” including China’s rocket and missile tests, a US defence official told reporters on condition of anonymity.
At the meeting of foreign and defence ministers in the western Australian city of Perth, the two governments also launched discussions on granting the Americans future access to air bases in northern Australia as well as naval ports, including one in nearby Stirling, Smith said.
Smith welcomed the deployment of US Marines this year in Australia’s north, where 250-strong contingents spend
six-month tours. He said the two sides would soon increase the number of Marines on the ground to 1,100 by 2014, with the goal of 2,500 Marines in place by about 2016-17.
A joint communique signalled “increased rotations of US aircraft through northern Australia” but also struck a cautious note, saying any enhanced US military presence “would require substantial further study and additional decisions by both capitals”. — AFP