The United States and Australia held their sixth annual Counterproliferation Dialogue in Canberra on August 2-3. The annual meeting is one of several exchanges held by the United States and Australia each year to strengthen bilateral cooperation to address the threat posed by the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, their means of delivery, and sensitive dual-use technologies.
Interagency experts from both sides met to discuss a range of counterproliferation and strategic trade control challenges, and to identify avenues to best address those challenges. The 2017 Dialogue placed special emphasis on U.S. and Australian efforts to promote effective third country implementation of the UN Security Council resolutions concerning North Korea, opportunities to improve enforcement of strategic trade controls, and the upcoming Proliferation Security Initiative Exercise Pacific Protector, which Australia will host in September 2017. Both sides agreed to meet again next year.