Japan PM heads for India

TOKYO (AFP) – Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama left for India on Sunday for talks with his counterpart Manmohan Singh aimed at strengthening security and economic cooperation.

Hatoyama will also meet Rajendra Pachauri, head of a Nobel-winning UN panel of climate scientists, to discuss how to generate momentum on tackling global warming after the Copenhagen climate accord failed to reach binding targets, officials said.

“The issue of disarmament, nuclear (nonproliferation), climate change and economy...I wish to deepen discussions on various issues,” Hatoyama told reporters ahead of his departure.

Japan and India have failed to reach a free trade deal after years of negotiations, bogged down over how much to reduce tariffs and whether Japan will ease its tight regulations to allow Indian generic drugs.

But fast-growing India is increasingly attractive to Japanese business as Tokyo relies on exports for economic recovery amid subdued domestic demand.

Hatoyama will meet Singh for the second time after talks in October on the sidelines of the summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Thailand.

In the October talks, Singh said India wanted to benefit from nuclear power as a clean source of energy and hoped Japan would eventually share its technological know-how.

Hatoyama replied that “Japan, the only nation to have suffered an atomic attack, would study the possibility of cooperation,” the foreign ministry has said in a statement.

Japan reluctantly backed a landmark 2008 deal between India and the United States giving New Delhi access to nuclear technology after being shut out for decades.

But Japan has hesitated to pursue a deal on nuclear energy with India, a non-signatory of the nuclear nonproliferation treaty.

On climate talks, India -- like fellow developing heavyweight China -- has refused to commit to emission cuts in the new treaty until developed nations, particularly the United States, present sufficient targets of their own.

The Copenhagen pact, put together by the major emerging and developed countries earlier this month, sets a commitment to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit), but did not spell out the important stepping stones -- global emissions targets for 2020 or 2050 -- for getting there.

Nor did it identify a year by which emissions should peak, and pledges were made voluntarily and without tough compliance provisions.

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