Japan calls on India to join Asian 'arc of freedom'

NEW DELHI (AFP) - India and Japan vowed yesterday to seal an economic partnership deal by December as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe urged New Delhi to join Tokyo in the creation of an Asian "arc of freedom."

Abe laid out his vision for a new four-way "arc of freedom and prosperity" bringing together Australia, India, Japan and the US.

With China rising, Japan is pushing ahead with a strategic partnership in India and other nations, but New Delhi -- not keen to upset Beijing -- has said the initiative should not be seen as a "zero-sum game."

"A new broader Asia that broke away from geographical boundaries is now beginning to take on a distinct form," said Abe, who arrived in India on Tuesday, accompanied by 200 top Japanese executives.

"By Japan and India coming together in this way, this 'broader Asia' will evolve into an immense network spanning the entirety of the Pacific Ocean, incorporating the United States of America and Australia," he said in an address to a special session of the Indian parliament.

Abe and Singh later said they had agreed to expand cooperation in the fields of energy security and environmental protection.

They also called for a drive to accelerate the creation a proposed 100-billion-dollar industrial corridor from Delhi to the Arabian sea port of Mumbai.

"We also agreed that bilateral cooperation in security has progressed and we discussed future course of action to expand its scope," Abe told a news conference after talks with Singh.

He urged India to "participate in a responsible manner on long-term international objectives of fighting greenhouses gases by 2050."

"We welcome prime minister Abe's initiatives on climate change but we must also ensure energy security to fight poverty and we call for Japan's participation in this sector," Singh told reporters with Abe at his side.

The two leaders said India and Japan had set the target of more than doubling bilateral trade to 20 billion dollars by 2010 from eight billion currently.

"Economic ties are at the core of our partnership," Singh said.

Earlier, top Japanese and Indian commerce officials pledged to tie up the economic partnership pact by year-end.

Officials said Japanese industries were looking to India not just for its huge domestic market, but as a future manufacturing and export base.

For its part, New Delhi is wooing Japanese capital in Indian infrastructure, with an estimated 320 billion dollars needed over the next five years if India is to keep up its nine percent economic growth rate.

Abe and Singh said they had discussed India's bid to participate in global civilian nuclear commerce, after a gap of three decades, in the wake of a pact on civilian nuclear cooperation agreed by India and the United States.

The pact requires the approval of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), which controls the sale of nuclear fuel and technology.

Japan is one of the countries in the group and Abe said Tokyo will "wait and watch closely" the outcome of negotiations between India and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

"There will be also discussions with the NSG and I told prime minister Singh that it is essential for India to appropriately negotiate with the IAEA in order to respond to the concerns of Japan and the international community," he said.

Singh said he was hoping for Japan's backing. "My hope is that when the matter comes before the NSG we will get Japan's support," he told the joint press conference.

India has indicated it plans to move ahead with negotiations with the IAEA, even though the pact has sparked a domestic political crisis. Communist allies in the coalition government have demanded that it be scrapped.