Civil nuclear pact with Japan historic step: Narendra Modi

Tokyo, Nov. 12 (Jiji Press)-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his visiting Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, travelled on a Shinkansen bullet train together from Tokyo to the western Japan city of Kobe on Saturday.

At their annual Summit, Modi and Abe will discuss ways to enhance ties in a broad range of areas, including security, trade and investment, skill development and infrastructure development.

The agreement between the two countries was signed during a visit by the Indian prime minister to Japan and has taken six years of negotiations.

Strong India, strong Japan will not only enrich our two nations.

Tokyo and New Delhi will strengthen security cooperation, including joint maritime exercises.

The deal will be operationalised after the Japanese Diet (parliament) ratifies the deal.

The agreement also carries clause that mentions that India can not claim for any sort of compensations including the disruption of electricity or the consequent economic loses during the event of India conducting the nuclear test.

India is also the first country that has not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty to have such an agreement with Japan, where two atomic bombs were detonated during World War ll.

After the Indo-Japan deal was signed, Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar had said it is strikingly similar to atomic agreements India inked with the U.S. and most of the other countries, having provisions like “termination” clause.

Of course, this is strictly for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and for clean power generation in the context of the wider discussion on climate change.

“The agreement for cooperation on peaceful uses of nuclear energy marks a historic step in our engagement to build a clean energy partnership”, Modi said after the agreement was signed. Top government officials in New Delhi have told NDTV that a separate note, signed by Indian and Japanese officials last week, along with the nuclear agreement, is not legally binding. Although India signed a nuclear deal with the United States, it needed a similar deal with Japan to actually realise the deal.

Friday’s was the eighth meeting between Modi and Abe in the last two years.

Asked whether he was confident that Japan’s Parliament will ratify the pact, Jaishankar said, “We conclude agreements in the expectation that they are then ratified and implemented”.

The cooperation would end if India goes for nuclear tests. He said the contents of that declaration have been reiterated.