Japan has in the past shunned civil nuclear cooperation with India, which has not ratified the worldwide Non-Proliferation Treaty, but appears to have softened its stance.
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Abe’s visit has been a substantive one, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself said after talks with his Japanese counterpart. It has always lent to India its enormous technological capability and it goes further now in terms of being chosen to put up the first Shinkansen “bullet train” pathway in India between Ahmedabad and Mumbai, an initiative that is of far more recent vintage than agreements signed in other areas, including over advanced equipment for the Indian armed forces, most of all the Navy. India needs high speed growth in partnership with Japan, and not just high speed train, said PM Modi.
Under the two defense pacts signed, the two sides will share technology, equipment and military information.
“Defence related agreements are indeed the most important part of this particular visit by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to India”, Yasuhisa Kawamura, Director General for Press and Public Diplomacy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan told The Hindu in an exclusive meeting. In a joint statement, Abe and Modi said that New Delhi and Tokyo chose to work together for the economic development of the two countries.
As he arrived in India Friday, Prime Minister Abe flagged the importance of their growing security ties, writing in an editorial in the Times of India that “in order to maintain an open, free and peaceful sea, it becomes important more and more for there to be collaboration between Japan and India, as well as the worldwide community including the U.S”.
In his first term as prime minister, Abe had worked towards a loose arc of democracy in the Asia-Pacific region, stretching from the USA and Australia as well as Japan and India.
These will make it possible for Japan to sell US-2 amphibious aircraft to India, a deal the two sides have been negotiating for two years. Modi also welcomed the Japanese ODA loans of about 100 billion yen for the metro projects in Chennai and Ahmedabad.
The visa on arrival facility for Japanese tourists will also give a boost to tourism in the country, Sharma emphasised.
The two Prime Ministers reaffirmed the intention to develop Japan Industrial Townships (JITs) in India with incentive for companies which invest in the project. “They have the institutional mechanisms for long-term concessional infrastructure financing”.
New Delhi and Tokyo started formal negotiations in June 2010 – two years after the Indo-US nuke deal ended India’s isolation from global nuclear commerce.
Japan, the only victim of a nuclear bomb, had to be assured of India’s commitment to non-proliferation before they agreed to the MoU on peaceful uses of nuclear energy.
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Modi and Abe also called for an immediate commencement and early conclusion of negotiations on a non-discriminatory, multilateral and internationally and effectively verifiable Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT) on the basis of Shannon Mandate. “They also urged North Korea to address at the earliest the abductions issue”, the statement said.
