POLITICS: Japan and India Back Each Other With U.N., Trade Agreements, page 1

The Prime Ministers of Japan and India today formalized an eight-point agreement to increase ties in trade, technology, and science. Most notable, perhaps, is the agreement made between the two leaders today to back each other for permanent seats on the U.N. Security Council.

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Realising a new surge of change, creativity and vitality that is transforming Asia, the two Asian leaders recognised the need for concerted efforts among Asian countries to translate the positive developments into an “Arc of Advantage and Prosperity” involving growth, prosperity, stability and closer integration in Asia.

During his meeting with Singh, Koizumi agreed to pledge huge financial assistance to large infrastructure projects in India.

Even as Japan and India seek a permanent seat in the expanded Security Council, both the countries reiterated support for each other in this regard. “In this connection, they stress the importance of taking a decision on the Security Council reforms before the summit in September 2005, as the Secretary-General recommended,” the joint statement noted. The two sides decided to launch an oil and natural gas cooperation dialogue between the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas of India and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) of Japan.

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India and Japan should both have seats on the U.N. Security Council. These are two mature countries with respectable governments that have economic and moral interests in world security developments.

This news comes after India and China announced partnership agreements last month to boost bilateral trade between the countries to 50 billion dollars by 2010 - compared to India and Japan's current 4 billion dollars, with hopes of increasing to 20 billion dollars in the same time frame.

It's good to see India making agreements with "the free world." Perhaps their new ties with China are more economic and not as political as some ATS threads had posed.

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