The Hindu : Japan expected to restore development assistance to India

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jan 07, 2003

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Japan expected to restore development assistance to India

By Amit Baruah

NEW DELHI Jan. 6. The Japanese Foreign Minister, Yoriko Kawaguchi, is expected to announce the restoration of her country's overseas development assistance (ODA) to India to the levels that existed before the May 1998 nuclear tests conducted by New Delhi.

Ms. Kawaguchi, who arrives here tomorrow morning, will hold talks with the External Affairs Minister, Yashwant Sinha, and also visit the Japanese-assisted New Delhi Metro. On Wednesday, she is expected to call on the President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, and the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee. An appointment has also been sought with the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, Japanese sources said.

Ms. Kawaguchi had tried to visit India in June 2002, but the timing was not convenient to New Delhi because of the visit of the U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, Richard Armitage, when Indo-Pakistani tensions were still high. The sources stressed that Ms. Kawaguchi, who is coming here from Sri Lanka, had decided to skip Pakistan during her current trip because she had to be back in Tokyo as the Japanese Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi, would be in Moscow.

The purpose of the Foreign Minister's visit was to give a "fresh impetus'' to the bilateral relations between Japan and India. Referring to the imposition of economic sanctions by Japan after the Indian nuclear tests, the sources said that it took till October 2001 to suspend the measures on account of opposition from hardliners within the Japanese Parliament. The sources said there was a sense of frustration in the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi that the relationship had not moved forward in 2002, despite the visit by the Prime Minister to Japan in 2001. The focus of the Kawaguchi visit was to convince New Delhi that Tokyo attached considerable strategic importance to ties with New Delhi. Japan was also keen on enhancing defence cooperation with India. A security dialogue at the official level had been agreed to.

The infrastructure sector was another area where there could be continued cooperation between Japan and India. Ms. Kawaguchi was likely to make a pledge on continuing assistance to the Delhi Metro project in its subsequent phases. On the Pakistan-North Korea nexus, the sources said that Tokyo was extremely concerned about North Korean nuclear proliferation and was coordinating closely with the U.S. and South Korea on the issue. But it would prefer to wait for "hard evidence'' as far as Pakistan's role in the affair was concerned. Pointing to the limited influence that Japan had on North Korea, the sources said that Tokyo would have to ask Beijing and Moscow to use their influence with Pyongyang.

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