Japan-India Relations
Courtesy Call on Mr. Minoru Kiuchi, State Minister for Foreign Affairs, by Indian Parliamentarian Delegation
October 16, 2014
- On Thursday October 16, Mr. Minoru Kiuchi, State Minister for Foreign Affairs, received a courtesy call by an Indian parliamentary delegation (five parliamentarians from the House of the People and the Council of States of India headed by Mr. Tarun Vijay, MP, Council of States, Parliament of India), from 9:15 a.m. for approximately 30 minutes.
- Mr. Vijay said that both the ruling and opposition parties in India share a common awareness of the importance of further enhancing the Japan-India relationship and that he would like to further develop the relationship, with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to India last January and Indian Prime Minister H.E. Mr. Narendra Modi's visit to Japan last September as two pillars. Other members of the delegation also expressed their strong expectation for the development of Japan-India relations.
- In response, touching upon the fact that Prime Minister Abe and Prime Minister Modi agreed on elevating the Japan-India relationship to the Special Strategic and Global Partnership when Prime Minister Modi visited Japan, State Minister Kiuchi said that Japan also attaches importance to its relationship with India and that he would like to further strengthen strategic cooperative relations in a wide range of fields such as politics and security, economy and economic cooperation, and people-to-people exchange.
- In addition, State Minister Kiuchi and the Indian delegation shared the view that Japan and India as two major democracies of Asia should make efforts for further promoting exchanges between parliamentarians. While State Minister Kiuchi stated that he would like the Indian parliamentary delegation to visit Japan again next year, Mr. Vijay said that Japan-India relations are "all-weather relations" and that he would like to work on further developing the bilateral relationship through such exchanges.