PM Modi, Japanese counterpart Kishida hold talks on challenges in Indo-Pacific
New Delhi, March 20: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Japanese counterpart Fumio Kishida on Monday held talks regarding the ongoing regional and global developments, Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra said.
While addressing the media briefing, Kwatra informed that the two leaders spoke about how India, Japan and other like-minded countries work together to address the challenges, particularly in the wider-expanse of Indo-Pacific.
"The two leaders also spoke about the ongoing developments in our region and also globally," he said on a question over Chinese aggression.
"Naturally, as part of those discussions, they spoke about the challenges that we face in the region. How India and Japan and other like-minded countries can work together to address those challenges and not just focus on challenges, but also focus on cooperation, particularly in the wider-expanse of Indo-Pacific."
"How do you take the other countries of the Indo-Pacific together? That is cut across several domains. So, for example, how do you partner within the Indo-Pacific to build resilient and trustworthy supply chains, for example? How do you come together to mitigate some of the challenges that the development template of many of these countries within the Pacific face in terms of debt burdens etc? So all that formed part of a larger, a broad platform of discussion so far in the region, sub-region specifically, and the larger field of Indo-Pacific is concerned," the Foreign Secretary said.
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He also stated that there was no discussion about Quad expansion between PM Modi and his Japanese counterpart Kishida. "All the Quad members are very clear in their mind that Quad needs to undergo a very-very appropriate phase of consolidation before we look to anything other than Quad."
Quad is a strategic security dialogue that includes Australia, India, Japan, and the United States.
Fumio Kishida, Japan's Prime Minister, called India a "indispensible partner" and stated that Japan will expand cooperation for a Free and Open Indo-Pacific.
During his 41st Sapru House Lecture, Kishida emphasised the importance of leading the international community towards cooperation rather than confrontation and division.
"India is an indispensable partner and I believe India and Japan are in an extremely unique position in the current International relations and further in the history of the world. India is the largest democracy in the world. I have always viewed with great respect the way such a huge and diverse country as India has developed a democracy," he said.
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- ANI
