Trudeau said Canada is in talks about possibly joining the AUKUS alliance

Canada is negotiating with Australia, the UK and the US on a possible entry into the military alliance AUKUS. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters.

“Yes, we are already observers in the working groups of the second component of AUKUS. We’ve had great discussions with the US, the UK and Australia about how we can work even closer. Frankly, that’s good news,” Trudeau said when asked if Canada could be part of the alliance starting with the implementation of its second phase initiatives, also called the component.

The prime minister added that he appreciated the fact that, in addition to Canada, New Zealand has started talks to join the alliance, while Japan has also been active in this direction.

Earlier, Australia and New Zealand announced the start of talks on Wellington’s possible participation in the second, non-nuclear component of the AUKUS partnership. Australian Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles noted that the countries have agreed on the visit of the Australian working group, which will inform the New Zealand government about what is the second component of the alliance. In addition, on April 8, it became known that the members of AUKUS are ready to work with Japan on the development of advanced military technologies not related to the joint development of nuclear submarines.

AUKUS is a security partnership between the governments of Australia, Britain and the United States, established in September 2021 to implement a number of joint defense initiatives in two areas, called components. The first involves providing Australia with a fleet of nuclear attack submarines. The second relates to joint development of military assets in eight areas including submarine systems, quantum technologies, artificial intelligence and autonomous systems, cybersecurity and electronic warfare developments, hypersonic aircraft and their interception capabilities, and innovation and information sharing technologies.

The alliance countries admit that the bloc may be expanded to include partners and like-minded countries, including in the Indo-Pacific region, in this regard, Russia and China express concern and call on AUKUS members to strictly fulfill their nonproliferation obligations.