India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives make up the staple Trilateral Indian Ocean security group which is protected by the coast guards and navies of the islands, according to Shivshankar Menon, National Security Advisor to India’s prime minister Manmohan Singh.

Detailed in a report by The New Indian Express, Seychelles and Mauritius were invited to a recent trilateral security group meeting covering “Maritime Security Cooperation between the Maldives, Sri Lanka and India.” The two African islands expressed interest in joining the group, which will solidify an expansion at an upcoming Mauritius meeting.

“We have achieved a great deal in terms of practical cooperation between our navies and coast guards. We have formulated concrete responses to situations,” Menon said in the article.

“The ideal is to pool our capabilities. We see this (grouping) as a means of solid cooperation. There are no grand declarations but real work on the ground… on the ocean.”

Close to 100,000 ocean vessels, 33 percent of both container and bulk traffic — and double that percentage of the world’s oil tanker ships make their way through the Indian Ocean region, The New Indian Express noted.

More so than piracy, Seychelles and Mauritius’ addition to the security group will contribute to smoothing over cooperation agreements and on-the-ground logistics related to maritime business.

Prior to the most recent meeting, cooperative agreements covered identification programs and awareness initiatives which made clear the group’s purpose and reach, the report said.