I am very pleased that the Japan-India Friendship Year is being held in 2007 on the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the cultural agreement between Japan and India.
Japan and India have been cultivating their friendship through a long history. It is well known that an Indian Buddhist priest, Bodhisena, inaugurated the Great Buddha of Todaiji-temple in Japan in the 8th century. Japanese people bear vivid memories of the friendship and frequent interchange between the greatest Indian poet, Rabindranath Tagore and the Japanese thinker, Tenshin Okakura, and of the stormy lives of Ras Bihari Bose and Subhas' Chandra Bose who fought for the independence of India.
I made an official visit to India in August 2000 as Prime Minister of Japan, with a strong determination to boost the Japan-India relationship to a much higher level, and reached an agreement to establish the "Japan-India Global Partnership in the 21st Century" at the Summit meeting. It was a decision not only to strengthen the traditional bilateral relationship, but also to collaborate in tackling global issues, Japan and India being countries with high responsibilities in the world. I am very confident that the agreement opened a new page of the history of Japan-India relations.
After the visit in 2000, I also had opportunities to visit India in 2001, 2002 and 2005. Among others, I visited India as the Prime Minister's Special Envoy in 2002, and attended the Japan-India Symposium in Delhi in 2005. At every visit, I really feel that the Japan-India relationship is developing and expanding day by day.
Dr. Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India told me "Now India and Japan have the closest relationship!". This was a very moving expression to me, who had been involved with the process of strengthening the bilateral relationship.
Japan-India Friendship Year 2007 is a golden opportunity to further increase and strengthen the friendship between Japan and India. During the Japan-India Friendship Year, I would also like to contribute to increasing the people to people exchanges between the two countries as the Honorary Chairman of the Executive Committee of Japan-India Friendship Year.
I wish for the great success of the Japan-India Friendship Year.
Yoshiro Mori
Former Prime Minister of Japan
Honorary Chairman of the Executive Committee of
Japan-India Friendship Year |
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