India and Japan will chart a new course in their bilateral ties when Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee embarks on Friday on a five-day visit to Japan that is expected to put behind their strained relations after New Delhi's nuclear tests in 1998. Vajpayee will have wide-ranging talks with his counterpart Junichiro Koizumi on a range of issues including the global fight against terrorism and seek to give a greater economic content to bilateral relations. Vajpayee's visit, second by an Indian prime minister in past ten years after P V Narasimha Rao, is all set to strengthen their ties particularly in business and industry and concretise global partnership in the 21st century. The relations between the two countries had suffered a big setback in 1998 following nuclear tests by India with Tokyo imposing economic sanctions which were lifted recently.
Vajpayee leaves on Friday for Osaka, a major city in Japan, where he will spend two days meeting representatives of business and industry before reaching Tokyo on December 9. His parleys with Koizumi the next day will be followed by delegation-level talks. According to foreign secretary Chokila Iyer, the fight against terrorism in the light of September 11 terrorist strike in US will be on the top of agenda during the talks. There is no move to have a joint declaration on terrorism, she told reporters in New Delhi. Reconstruction and rehabilitation of war-ravaged Afghanistan and restructuring of the UN Security Council will also figure during the discussions, she said. Bureau Report