Japan-India Relations
Foreign Minister Kono Pays a Courtesy Call on
H.E. Mr. Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India
January 7, 2019



On January 7th, from 8:10 PM (local time, 11:40 PM January 7th Japan time) for approximately 25 minutes, Mr. Taro Kono, Minister for Foreign Affairs, paid a courtesy call on H.E. Mr. Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, during his visit to India. The overview of the meeting is as follows.
- At the beginning Prime Minister Modi welcomed Minister Kono’s visit to India and wished his friend, Prime Minister Abe and the people of Japan a happy new year.
- Minister Kono stated the following:
(1)It is my pleasure to meet Prime Minister Modi again since his last visit to Japan in October 2018.
(2)India is the most important partner to realize a “Free and Open Indo-Pacific”. With India, Japan would like to play a leading role in promoting peace and prosperity in the region and the world.
(3)This year, Japan will be hosting the G20, and looks forward to the visit by Prime Minister Modi, following his last year’s visit to Japan. It is Prime Minister Abe’s turn to visit India this year for the next Summit meeting, and we would like to coordinate with India to make the visit fruitful.
(4)In order to further promote bilateral security and defence cooperation, Japan hopes for the earliest realization of a 2+2 Ministerial Meeting, the negotiations on the Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement (ACSA), and dialogues on space and cyber. We would like to enhance people-to-people exchange through the India-Japan Friendship Forum. - H.E. Mr. Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India stated that he looked forward to his attendance at the G20 summit meeting as well as Prime Minister Abe’s prospective visit to India.
- Moreover, they exchanged opinions on various topics involving regional situations and shared the view to continue close collaboration.