Manmohan Singh lands in Tokyo for annual summit

TOKYO - Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Sunday arrived in the Japanese capital on a three-day visit during which he will hold extensive bilateral talks with his counterpart Naoto Kan.

In Tokyo for the India-Japan annual summit, Manmohan Singh will discuss with Naoto Kan the gamut of bilateral, regional and global issues.

India is expected to announce the conclusion of negotiations on the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with Japan. However, the actual signing of the agreement will have to wait, Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao told reporters in Delhi, for the internal processes that Japan has to go through and the “legal scrubbing of the documents”.

“That is the reality and we have to deal with realities in diplomacies,” Rao said, describing CEPA as a “win-win proposition for both countries”.

The civil nuclear deal is also still on its way. “We have had two rounds of discussion on the peaceful use of nuclear energy,” the foreign secretary said, adding that there was “political resolve” in both countries to take these discussions forward.

The Japanese involvement in major infrastructure development projects in India, like the dedicated freight corridor and the Delhi-Mumbai Industral corridor, will also be discussed by the two prime ministers.

The prime minister and his wife, Gursharan Kaur, will be received in audience by the Emperor and Empress of Japan. Besides, the prime minister will be holding several meetings with political leaders, parliamentarians and captains of Japanese trade and industry.

From Japan, the prime minister will travel to Malaysia and then Vietnam before returning home Oct 30.