A ‘mistake’ to have walked out of Quad, Malabar exercise in 2008: Australian envoy Barry O’Farrell

 Australia should not have walked out of the Quad, and subsequently the Malabar exercises with India, but was “delighted” at New Delhi’s decision to invite it to participate in this year’s naval exercises in November, Australian High Commissioner to India Barry O’Farrell said.

Referring to the his government’s announcement in 2008 that it would not participate in the Quad exercises with India, Japan and the United States, he said it probably became the reason India took three years to accept Australia’s request to rejoin the exercises, despite requests from 2017-2020.