Indian PM seeks nuclear blessing in Japan

TOKYO—Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has started a visit to Japan to seek support from the major civilian atomic power for the controversial US-India nuclear cooperation pact.
Singh, the first Indian premier here in five years, will have a red-carpet reception throughout his stay as Japan seeks warmer relations with a fellow Asian democracy to counter frequent tension with China.
The Indian premier said Japan and India “increasingly find that their long-term political, economic and strategic interests are converging.” “I look forward to using this visit to elevate India-Japan relations to a qualitatively new level,” Singh, who arrived Wednesday evening at Tokyo’s Haneda airport, said on leaving New Delhi.
During the four-day visit, the Indian prime minister will sign agreements to start negotiations on a free trade pact in January and to expand flights and trade, officials said on Wednesday. But despite the good feelings, Japanese leaders appear divided on one of Singh’s signature foreign policy feats — his deal with US President George W. Bush to bring India out of the nuclear wilderness. Under the pact, the United States would export nuclear fuel and technology to India which would put its civilian-use reactors under outside scrutiny. The deal needs to be approved by the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group, which controls the movement of nuclear material and was set up excluding India after its first atomic test in 1974.
Japan is the only nation to have been attacked with nuclear bombs and yet is also one of the biggest producers of atomic energy, a paradox that may let it hold the keys to India’s entrance into the global civilian nuclear club. A Japanese foreign ministry official said Japan would wait for Singh’s explanations and to see the final shape of the US-India treaty.
“We should wait for these developments before Japan can define its own positions,” he said on condition of anonymity. But Indian National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan was confident that Japan would give up any hesitation. “Whatever indications are there, Japan understands our needs for nuclear material and resources. We are fairly confident that Japan will not be unwilling to support us at the Nuclear Suppliers Group,” the Press Trust of India quoted Narayanan as telling reporters on Singh’s aircraft. The pact also faces widespread accusations in India that it is too intrusive. The criticism comes both from Singh’s leftist allies and the Hindu nationalist opposition, which, while in power in 1998, declared India a nuclear power with bomb tests that were replicated by rival Pakistan.
However, the US Congress passed the deal by an overwhelming margin last week despite concern by some lawmakers that it set a bad example to aspiring nuclear powers such as Iran, as India has not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
For Japan, the nuclear taboo has eased since October when arch-enemy North Korea tested an atom bomb. Two top politicians have called for Tokyo to consider developing atomic weapons itself. “On the one hand, there are the people who say that we should at least publicly approve of the pact and then Japanese firms can also benefit,” said Takako Hirose, a South Asia expert at Tokyo’s Senshu University.—Agencies