The “door is open” for New Zealand and other countries to join the security pact between the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday.
“On AUKUS as we continue to develop it … the door is very much open for New Zealand and other partners to engage as they see appropriate going forward,” Blinken told reporters in New Zealand. “We’ve long worked together on the most important national security issues, and so as we further develop AUKUS, as I said, the door is open to engagement.”
AUKUS, an acronym for the current partners, is a trilateral security pact announced in 2021 focused on the Pacific region.