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Singapore, India set up joint panel

P. S. Suryanarayana

Focus on Track-II exercise

SINGAPORE: India and Singapore on Tuesday fashioned a strategic partnership in all but name.

They also set up a Joint Ministerial Committee to monitor and enhance their “multidimensional” ties.

External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, now meeting all top leaders of the City-State to advance this mission, told The Hindu that the “formative and informal” engagement among four democracies – India, the Uni ted States, Japan and Australia – “is not targeted against any country.”

Mr. Mukherjee, who was answering a question on China taking a dim view of this un-named forum, said, “It is [also] premature” to talk about taking on board any other Asia-Pacific country to address such sensitivities or for any other reason. Without endorsing the label of “a concert of democracies” for the new grouping, he said, “It is yet to evolve.”

On the India-U.S. civil nuclear energy deal, he said, “We are trying to conclude the discussions as early as possible.” About the residual stumbling blocks, he said, “When discussion takes place, you cannot just go on making comments on this clause, that clause.”

India’s new strategic dialogue with Singapore would take place “not in the glare of publicity” but as a focussed Track-II exercise.

The new joint committee, headed by the Foreign Ministers, would meet every year.

The panel “is symbolic of the maturity, depth, and range of our rapidly developing bilateral ties,” Mr. Mukherjee said at a joint press conference with Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo.

Answering a question whether this new diplomatic flurry signified a strategic partnership in the making, Mr. Yeo said: “We see India playing a growing role in the maintenance of peace [and] in creating conditions for development in all of Asia in this century. Singapore and India are bound by ties of history, of culture, of blood; and we see all these things becoming much more important again, as we look into the future. So, whether or not we call it a strategic partnership, it certainly is.”

Mr. Mukherjee called on President S. R. Nathan and Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong. He will meet Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Wednesday.

Two historical issues figured prominently, with Mr. Mukherjee releasing the 12th volume of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s Collected Works and with Mr. Yeo announcing that Singapore would hold an exhibition on the Nalanda heritage in November to coincide with the prospective East Asia Summit.

Mr. Yeo said he discussed with Mr. Mukherjee the formation of a group to study, in a contemporary context, the heritage of Bose and the Indian National Army in Singapore.

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