Working closely with India on defence, security issues: New Zealand Deputy PM

External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar with New Zealand’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Winston Peters during a meeting in New Delhi on May 29, 2025. | Photo Credit: X/@DrSJaishankar via PTI

In the current era of “great uncertainty”, New Zealand has started working “more closely” with India in the fields of defence and security, said Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of New Zealand in New Delhi on Friday (May 30, 2025).

Speaking at an event, Mr. Peters gave an overview of his country’s foreign policy, and said that freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is “crucial” for New Zealand.

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“During a time of great uncertainty, instability and disorder, we have taken steps to work more closely on matters of defence and security with India. A recently signed Defence Cooperation Arrangement will facilitate closer links between our militaries,” Mr. Peters said, speaking at a fireside chat organised by the Ananta Aspen Centre.

Security cooperation

Mr. Peters, who was among the global leaders who had joined India in condoling the loss of lives in the April 22 terror attack in Pahalgam, said that security cooperation between the two sides is increasing. “The New Zealand Navy is leading Combined Task Force 150, charged with securing trade routes and countering terrorism, smuggling, and piracy in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden,” he added. 

To deal with the uncertain and unpredictable conditions in the fields of security and economy, New Zealand has “reset” its foreign policy and is “significantly increasing” its “focus and resources” on south and southeast Asia, Mr. Peters said. Describing India as a “geopolitical giant”, he said that India has emerged as an “indispensable security actor in both regional and global spheres. In the prevailing international circumstances, he argued in favour of giving space to diplomacy saying, “We need more diplomacy, more engagement, more compromise.” 

‘Small states matter’

“Since war and instability is everyone’s calamity, diplomacy is the business of us all. We have observed that at this moment in time the ability to talk with, rather than at, each other has never been more needed,” Mr. Peters said, arguing in favour of safeguarding rights of countries like New Zealand that he described as a “small state”.

He described New Zealand’s foreign policy reset as the outcome of three pillars: the realism of the New Zealand government’s foreign policy, importance of diplomacy in the troubled world, and New Zealand’s “unshakeable belief that small states matter and that all states are equal.”

Freedom of navigation

Mr Peters, who held an official-level meeting with External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar on Thursday (May 29, 2025), described the maritime interests of his country unambiguously and said New Zealand is “self-evidently” a maritime nation that regards freedom of navigation as “crucial” both for itself and for India. Mr. Peters is the second high-level leader from New Zealand to visit India in three months.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon visited India during March 16-20, when the two sides announced the launch of a Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (CFTA). Deputy Foreign Minister Peters described the launch of FTA negotiations as a “breakthrough” in bilateral India-New Zealand economic relations. Mr Peters also met with the Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi and discussed “democratic systems and recent developments in both countries”.

Published - May 30, 2025 11:20 pm IST