India's foreign minister has urged Australia to ease coronavirus travel restrictions for thousands of students who have been unable to get into the country since the pandemic started 18 months ago.

Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said he raised the issue “in some detail” with his Australian counterpart Marise Payne alongside talks between defence ministers from both countries dominated by Afghanistan, according to AFP.

“We have heard a lot from the students and I think their frustrations, their feelings, are completely understandable,” Jaishankar told reporters.

“Many of them would like to be at the institutions where they want to study,” he said, adding students were “a very high priority” for his government, which has also faced hurdles with the US and Canada.