Flexibility needed for civil nuclear deal, says Japan

Japan today said flexibility is needed for concluding negotiations on a civil nuclear deal with India, as foreign ministers of the two countries agreed to accelerate discussions on the issue.
"Both sides have various situations at the background of this nuclear cooperation. Both sides have domestic situations. Considering all those things, every negotiation needs to have some kind of flexibility in order to conclude negotiations," said Kochi Mizushima, deputy press secretary of Japan's Foreign Ministry at a press conference here.
External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid and his Japanese counterpart Fumio Kishida held bilateral talks today on nuclear, security and economic cooperation on the sidelines of 11th Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) in Gurgaon.

"Negotiations are underway. The two Prime Ministers have instructed that the negotiations have to be accelerated and meetings have been held. The two foreign ministers also shared the view that we need to continue to accelerate the negotiations," Mizushima said.
While discussing the nuclear cooperation, they also acknowledged the need to address "domestic situation" in dealing with the issues.
India and Japan have held five rounds of discussions over the nuclear cooperation so far. The first meeting was held in July 2010 in Tokyo, while the last was held early this month in New Delhi. The dialogue process was, however, hit after the Fukushima Daichi incident in 2011.

Sources said that agreement with Japan will also help the US and France, as critical equipments could be sourced from the country.
It is to be noted that France, Russia and the US have expressed their concerns about the liability law.
The two ministers also discussed possible security cooperation. "A joint maritime exercise between the two was also discussed, but no decision was taken regarding this. Apart from it, working of the Joint Working Group form on US 2 amphibious aircraft was also discussed by the two ministers," Mizushima said.