Australia and UK to sign bilateral treaty for the production of a new class of nuclear submarines, reports "Reuters", quoted by News.bg. This will happen within the framework of the AUKUS partnership, which also includes the United States.
Australia to buy Virginia-class nuclear submarines from US over the next decade, and will subsequently build, together with Britain, a new class of AUKUS submarines under the announced 2023 AUKUS Pact.
"We will be negotiating a bilateral treaty between Australia and the United Kingdom to activate our part of AUKUS," Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles said after meeting his British and US counterparts in London yesterday. "We will operate with the same class of submarines. So when you look at industrial cooperation, technology transfer, the way all these mechanisms work – this is the subject of the contract," he added.
British Defense Minister John Healy noted that at the AUKUS Defense Ministers' meeting, an agreement was reached to use British-made Stingray torpedoes in P-8A maritime patrol aircraft, which are used as submarine hunting aircraft in the Indo-Pacific region.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said AUKUS partners have conducted significant experiments in the land, underwater and electromagnetic spectrum to improve warfighting capabilities as part of the so-called "second pillar" of AUKUS.
A joint statement said the AUKUS partners are increasing their ability to develop and deliver offensive and defensive hypersonic technologies and will conduct a large-scale drone exercise later this year.