India pressed on nuclear treaty

Yoshiro Mori sees India and Japan as global partners

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori has asked India to move quickly on signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

At a meeting of business leaders in Delhi, Mr Mori said while he appreciated India's moratorium on further nuclear testing, the country had to do more.

I strongly expect India's early signature to the CTBT

Japanese PM Yoshiro Mori

"I strongly expect India's early signature to the CTBT in order that we can take initiatives together for nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation and further promote our amicable relations"

Japan is the only country to have suffered a nuclear attack when the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

Mr Mori said India's nuclear tests in 1998 had come as a "bolt from the blue".

He said this had forced Japan to impose economic sanctions on the country.

"I would like you to understand this and the sentiment of Japanese people, who solely experienced the disaster of atomic bombs in the world," he was quoted as saying.

Japan is concerned over the nuclear programme

The Indian Government has told Japan that it is trying to develop a political consensus on signing the CTBT.

However, Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh made clear on Wednesday that India would not stand in the way of the treaty coming into force.

The assurances resulted in the release of $176m worth of development aid from Japan.

Economic ties

The Japanese premier is on a four-nation visit to South Asia, which has already taken him to Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Though nuclear non-proliferation seems to be the agenda of this visit, Mr Mori is also keen on improving economic ties with the region, especially India.

This was underlined by his visit to India's information technology (IT) capital, Bangalore, at the start of his trip.

He visited two of the country's most renowned IT firms, Infosys technologies and Wipro, and proposed an IT initiative with India.

Mr Mori had time for a bit of sightseeing

This will allow 1000 Indian engineers to train in Japan over a three-year period.

Indians seeking to visit Japan on business have also been promised multiple entry visas.

Japan has also proposed to send two missions, in October and January 2001, to discuss IT business prospects in India.

The country is India's fourth-largest investor and trade between the two countries exceeded $4.5bn last year.

However, Indian software exports to Japan account for only 3.5% of the total trade.

North America, with 62% of software exports, and Europe, with 23.5% exports, are bigger IT markets for India.

Indian software industry officials hope that an IT initiative between the two countries could help the IT exports to Japan touch the billion-mark by 2003.