The swiftly unfolding political events in Japan on Wednesday leading to the possibility of snap polls there in December has forced a last-minute cancellation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Japan. The PM was to leave for Tokyo on Thursday to participate in the annual bilateral summit.
The visit’s cancellation at the nth hour came after Japanese PM Yoshihiko Noda said he would dissolve the lower house later this week and go in for snap polls which are expected on December 16.
After his three-day visit there, the PM was to leave for Phnom Penh in Cambodia to participate in the Asean-India and East Asia summits. While the Japan leg of his tour is off, the PM will now visit Phnom Penh for the summits slated to begin from November 18.
“There have been fast-paced internal developments in Japan. Factoring these in, the government of India has decided that we should look for new dates. So the Prime Minister is not going from November 15 to 18,” said Gautam Bambawale, joint secretary (east Asia) in the ministry of external affairs (MEA) told reporters here on Wednesday afternoon.
Syed Akbaruddin, spokesperson of the MEA, said the PM was supposed to be in Japan from November 15 to 18. However, he said in view of “domestic developments in Japan, it’s been decided that the annual summit meeting would be postponed to a date which is mutually convenient to both the sides.” Now, the summit is expected to happen only after the December elections.
He said the Indian embassy in Tokyo and the Japanese embassy here were in touch with their respective authorities to work out mutually convenient dates. It’s learnt that the Japanese embassy here had spoken to the MEA here regarding the fast-paced political developments in their country leading to the last-minute postponement of the PM’s visit.
New Delhi attaches great significance to its ties with Tokyo and says its relationship with it is an “important one.” Indeed, sources here said that the bilateral ties are such that they will remain strong regardless of which party is in power. In fact, they pointed out that Shinzo Abe, the main Opposition leader and former Prime Minister, who belongs to the Liberal Democratic Party, is even more pro-India than Mr Noda.
The PM’s visit for the annual dialogue was being worked on for many months as is the norm. However, an element of uncertainty crept into the visit some two months ago when domestic political developments in Japan indicated at the time that early polls could be held in December.