Osaka (Japan), December 7
Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said today that a comprehensive security dialogue with Japan would be institutionalised; and that the two countries “have a number of contributions to make not only to peace and stability in the region but also to the strategic and economic dialogue within the international community.”

Speaking to mediapersons while embarking on a five- day visit to Japan, on the first leg of which he arrived in Osaka this evening, Mr Vajpayee said the partnership between India and Japan was based on “strategic convergences and economic complementarities.” He said he hoped to convey to the Japanese polity that the two countries were “natural partners in the global environment in which we find ourselves.”

Mr Vajpayee is scheduled to meet the Emperor and the Prime Minister of Japan, besides a host of top government and business personalities during the next four days. From Osaka, he will travel to Kobe and then to Tokyo to give shape to the comprehensive dialogue which had started during the then Prime Minister Mori’s visit to India in August last year. Mr Mori had described his visit as “the global partnership of the 21st century.”

Incidentally, this is for the first time in the last 50 years of Indo-Japanese diplomatic ties that two summits have taken place in one year. In fact, the two summits would have taken place in the same financial year if Mr Vajpayee had not cancelled his February schedule because of the Gujarat earthquake. Mr Vajpayee said the importance of his state visit could be gauged from the fact that he was making the trip despite Parliament being in session as he believed that it was important to carry forward “our relation with Japan in the direction of the global partnership” that had been discussed last year.

Mr Vajpayee said he would cover “regional and international issues of the day” during his discussions with Prime Minister Koizumi and other members of the Japanese leadership. He said both nations were members of the international cooperation against terrorism and they should strengthen bilateral cooperation against it.

He underlined the fact that there “have been many positive developments” in bilateral ties. He referred to the security dialogue and the growth in defence contracts in this context.

The India-Japan Eminent Persons’ Group had, he added, also submitted a comprehensive set of proposals and high- level Japanese economic missions had visited India. He expressed the hope that the visit would further build on the groundwork that had been done so far.