Australian Defense Minister Peter Dutton said that even before the agreement on the construction of nuclear submarines in Australia in the AUKUS alliance, Canberra had informed Paris about its concerns about the French submarine deal, Interfax reported.
“The suggestion that the Australian government has not raised these concerns is simply challenging, frankly, what is in the public domain, and certainly does not reflect what it has been publicly spoken about over a long period of time,” he said. Dutton in an interview with Sky News.
He said Australia has over the past several years expressed concerns to France about the 2016 order, which is estimated to be much more expensive today. And Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he expressed serious concern about the deal to French President Emmanuel Macron back in June, and made it clear that Australia needs to make a decision in favor of national interests.
The outrage of Paris is explained by the fact that the first action of the trilateral defense alliance AUKUS will be Australia’s withdrawal from the contract for the construction of submarines with the French company Naval Group for $90 billion.