“We have agreed to deepen the security aspects of our bilateral relationship, including our counter-terrorism cooperation and our shared efforts to deal with the threat posed by foreign terrorist fighters,” the two leaders said in a joint declaration as quoted by French President's website.
According to the statement, the sides are strengthening security cooperation in light of a December 2014 hostage crisis in Sydney staged by a self-proclaimed Islamic cleric, and the deadly Islamist terrorist attacks in Paris in January 2015.
Hollande and Abbott acknowledged that the Islamic State poses a significant threat to global security.
“We reaffirm our commitment to working with our international coalition partners to disrupt, degrade and ultimately destroy it [IS].”
The new efforts will include strengthening intelligence cooperation between the two states and creating a program of exchanges for counter-terrorism police officers.
To curb the ISIL advance, a US-led international coalition, of which both France and Australia are members, began airstrikes in August 2014 against targets in Iraq. In September 2014 the air campaign was expanded to Syria.
