N-cooperation tops agenda of meet
India and South Korea will discuss civilian nuclear energy cooperation when they hold the sixth joint commission meeting in Seoul on Friday.
“Civil nuclear cooperation will be discussed during the meeting. We do not know it what direction it would go, but we will have something for the press at the end of the meeting,” said Gautam Bambawale, joint secretary (east asia) in the external affairs ministry, in a news conference here on Wednesday.
South Korea, a member of the NSG, supported the waiver for India in the NSG in September 2008.
External affairs minister S.M. Krishna will co-chair the meeting along with his South Korean counterpart Yu Myung-hwan. During his three-day visit beginning Thursday, Mr Krishna will call on President Lee Myung-bak, meet defence minister Kim Tae-young, and address the Institute of foreign affairs and national security.
The South Korean President was the chief guest at the 2010 Republic Day celebrations.
Both sides will look to step up cooperation in space and defence. The two countries are also exploring possibilities of anti-piracy operations in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden. In 2006, India and South Korea signed a memorandum of understanding for cooperation between their coast guards.
Bilateral trade between India and South Korea was $15 billion in 2008 and the two countries have decided to double it by 2014.
A festival of India would be organised in South Korea in 2011. South Korea will hold a similar festival in India.
In Seoul, the South Korean foreign ministry said both sides can be expected to also ways to work together on the international stage.
“The forthcoming joint commission meeting, the first of its kind since the upgrading of Korea-India relations to a strategic partnership [in] January, is expected to serve as an arena for an exchange of in-depth views on various topics, thereby enhancing mutual understanding, and to help boost substantive cooperation between the two countries,” it said in a press release.
The joint commission has been convened five times since its inaugural gathering in April 2002 and its meetings will now be held on an annual basis.
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