The Hindu : Significance of Kawaguchi's visit

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jan 10, 2003

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Significance of Kawaguchi's visit

By K. K. Katyal

NEW DELHI JAN. 9. The visit of the Japanese Foreign Minister, Yoriko Kawaguchi, to India is significant on two counts. One, it marks the resumption of high-level exchanges, temporarily halted because of the heightened Indo-Pakistan tensions last year. Two, it signals the reconfirmation of Tokyo's preparedness not to let the development of bilateral relations with India be held hostage to differences on the nuclear issue, which took an ugly turn in the wake of Pokhran II in May 1998.

Ms. Kawaguchi covered Sri Lanka, apart from India, during the recent South Asia tour. The trip to Pakistan, though fixed at one stage, was cancelled — not because of any political reasons, according to Japanese sources, but because their Prime Minister was to go to Russia during the period the visit to Islamabad was scheduled and her presence in Tokyo was considered necessary. However, India-Pakistan relations figured at some length during her talks here with her counterpart, Yashwant Sinha. Another related subject was the situation arising from the U.S. media reports on clandestine deal between North Korea and Pakistan (with the former supplying missiles to Islamabad in exchange for help in the development of nuclear weapons).

According to the Japanese account, Tokyo took up the matter with Islamabad after seeing the media reports but the Pakistani President, Pervez Musharraf, flatly denied that there had been any such deals.

The matter, it was pointed out, was not pursued with Pakistan by Japan but its concerns appeared to have continued.

As regards the fight against terrorism, the Japanese side reiterated the firmness of its stand taken in the recent past — for instance, during the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee's visit to Tokyo on December 11, 2001. The two sides had agreed then that, to quote Mr. Vajpayee, ``terrorism cannot be justified wherever, whenever and for whatever reason'' and that the ``fight against global terrorism had to be comprehensive and sustained, with the objective of total elimination of terrorism.'' This, say Japanese sources now, was covered by the ``global partnership'', the fulcrum of their relationship.

India became aware of the keen Japanese interest in the resolution of the ethnic problem in Sri Lanka — even though it was evident from Ms. Kawaguchi's visit to Colombo.

Japan had named a senior diplomat, Yasushi Akashi, who had had an experience of dealing with conflicts as the U.N. Secretary-General's representative in Cambodia and Bosnia as its representative on Sri Lankan affairs.

Tokyo will like to give priority to the consolidation of the peace process — as a prerequisite to commitment of funds for reconstruction.

Japan had decided some time back to restore the Official Development Assistance, suspended after India's nuclear tests, but the quantum and other details were provided now. It will be of the order of $ 900 millions or 110 billion yen.

The highest in the past — in 1997— was 130 billion yen. The aid to India now was nearly of the same order as the aid to China, which, at one stage, was disproportionately high.

Japan has kept on repeating its point that India join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty but has not allowed it to come in the way of bilateral cooperation.

The ``global partnership' is intended to cover understanding as regards the WTO and environment issues, apart from counter-terrorism.

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