Joint Press Briefing by External Affairs Minister Shri Pranab Mukherjee

and Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom Ms. Margaret Beckett

(New Delhi; November 2, 2006)

EXTERNAL AFFAIRS MINISTER: Good morning, Ladies & Gentlemen. First of all, I would like to welcome the Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom to India. We are happy that one of her first major destinations abroad is our country, which underlines the importance both our countries attach to each other.

Ms. Beckett is a long-standing friend of India and is the Honorary President of the Labour Friends of India in the UK Parliament. It is due to the contribution and efforts of leaders like Ms. Beckett that this relationship has strengthened at such a fast pace. I am sure that it will continue to gather momentum under her stewardship.

Over the years, India and the UK have developed a historically strong relationship which has allowed us to work together on a number of important areas of mutual interest. The Indo-British bilateral relationship is now perhaps at its best ever. It is a comprehensive strategic partnership which seeks to intensify our co-operation over the entire gamut of our interactions. Our relationship is underpinned by the presence of a large, successful, integrated and dynamic Indian community in the UK.

As you are aware, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh just concluded the third bilateral Summit with Prime Minister Tony Blair in London. There was a remarkable convergence of views on the prospects of the bilateral relationship and on critical issues like counter proliferation and counter terrorism.

I had the privilege of discussing these issues with our honoured guest. We discussed the full range of international, regional and bilateral issues, as well as the follow up to the recent bilateral summit with the UK and the EU.

We have strong cooperation on international issues, with both of us uniting on the need to face terrorism with resolve and without equivocation. Both our countries have been the victims of terrorism. We greatly appreciate the UK's commitment to fight terrorism wherever it appears and the banning of terrorist groups operating against India. We discussed strengthening cooperation in counter-terrorism and have agreed to a meeting of our experts in the area of protecting critical national infrastructure such as mass transit systems and other assets.

We exchanged views on developments in South Asia. We share the objective of stabilising Afghanistan and ensuring that terrorism is defeated in our region, and we shared our perspectives in this regard.

Our economic relationship has been transformed dramatically, with half a million people from India visiting the UK annually and more than 400,000 British nationals visiting India. The UK has become a bridgehead for Indian companies' expansion abroad, especially in the I. T. sector, where as you know, India places great emphasis on intellectual property rights and data security and protection.

Both trade and investment have witnessed significant increases and India has emerged as the third largest investor in the UK. We would also encourage UK business to look more closely at investment and trade opportunities with India. We think there is great potential here.

Our educational links are also increasing with India having endowed Chairs in the UK and over 16,000 Indian students in UK educational institutions. Our human capital is the greatest resource that we have and this is helping lay the foundation for a strong synergy between our two knowledge-based economies.

Cooperation in scientific research and modalities to commercialise it are being explored. Our countries are also cooperating in developing solutions for sustainable development and clean energy.

The relationship is flourishing, multi-dimensional and strong. It is based on shared values and interests and indicates the depth and maturity of a partnership between our two countries - one the largest democracy and the other the oldest.

I have no doubt that our interactions today will contribute significantly to taking forward our comprehensive strategic partnership.

BRITISH FOREIGN SECRETARY (MS. MARGARET BECKETT): Thank you very much indeed Minister Mukherjee. It is a great pleasure to be able to visit India again and to be one of the early visitors to you in your new capacity to which I strongly welcome you. Apart from anything else, it is always nice to meet a Foreign Minister who is newer in that post than one who is …(inaudible)… It was as you say very recently that I was able to take part in the annual summit between our two Prime Ministers and I can certainly assure you that this was seen as a very, very successful visit and very much a testament to the strength and value of the relationship between India and the UK.

I am happy to say that, of course, I have visited India on a number of previous occasions and I think in almost all of my previous Ministerial roles, including the first occasion as the Minister for Trade and Industry and have many fond memories of all of those visits.

I think that our meeting this morning has been excellent, very constructive and hope that it will set the scene for the rest of my visit on this occasion. We have had, as you say, very constructive discussions on the bilateral relationship between India and the UK, on the important global challenges and opportunities that face all of us and on the regional and security issues, including counter-terrorism. I share your view that the bilateral relationship between our countries and between our Governments has probably never been better, and that also it is a modern and forward-looking relationship which is indeed, as you say, underpinned by the growing business links between our two countries. I believe that until recently the UK is the third largest investor into India and India is the third largest investor into the UK. Although I understand according to figures for the first six months of this year, India is the second largest investor into the UK. So, those links are indeed strengthening and the people-to-people links which see over a million people in effect traveling between our two countries every year is again testament to the strength of our relationship. But we have both agreed that we have to do more to thicken those excellent links. India and the UK are both important players on the world stage - our own country through its membership of the UN Security Council, the G8, the EU, the Commonwealth, and we see India as very much an important and a powerful country with a strong emerging economy. The UK has, as I hope you would know, been at the forefront, of course, for India to have a permanent seat in the UN Security Council. We were very keen to take steps for inviting India to take part in the G8 meeting at Gleneagles last year.

We see our two countries as natural partners as we look even beyond the bilateral relationship and to the global issues that face all of us. And today, as I said, Minister Mukherjee and I agreed how we can take forward the activities which will flow from cooperation on counter terrorism that our two Prime Ministers announced at the recent meeting in London.

We also touched on the challenges and opportunities of climate change. We have seen the Stern report - this is the summary, the full report is larger than this – published earlier this week. In that context again there is much for us to work on together. And, of course, we also both recognize the importance of success in the Doha trade talks.

What is clear about all of these issues is both how well our countries are working together but also how necessary it is that we work together. You were good enough to talk, Sir, about our shared values and interests and the maturity of our relationship. And I think, yes, it is a mature relationship because it has endured for many years but it is not its maturity which is the most important thing, it is indeed those shared values and interests and the way in which we work together. I look forward to a longer and fruitful partnership between us as Foreign Ministers as well as between our countries.

QUESTION (BBC): Mrs. Beckett, two questions if I can. One is on counter-terrorism. Could you tell us what in practice the cooperation means? On the climate change, what do you say to India to convince it to take up what the Stern report says that action is needed?
BRITISH FOREIGN SECRETARY: First of all, on the issue of counter-terrorism there are the obvious things on shared concern, shared flow of information and so on. But also very concretely we have people working, for example, with the relevant authorities in India to help prepare as we have all been trying to do for greater protection in attacks on mass transit infrastructure. So, there are some very concrete ways here, in which we are sharing our very unfortunate and tragic joint experience and trying to learn from each other’s experience.

With regard to the issue of climate change, we take very strongly the view which indeed Sir Nicholas Stern expresses in his report that this is a common interest, but it is, of course, wrong to use the language of, the jargon if you like, in climate change today which is ‘differentiated’. It is the developed countries, unfortunately, who have created - although no one realised we were doing so at that time- some of these problems because of the unsustainability of our approach in the past for growth and development. Therefore, it is for us to move first and to take the lion’s share, if you like, of the action that has to be taken if these problems are to be resolved. But, unfortunately, there are problems which will face all of us. What Sir Nicholas Stern identifies in his report is that these are problems the world community is able to address if we work together (as a world community); that the earlier we take action the less it will cost; and if we do not take action the cost in every country in the world will be much greater than anything that it could cost us to take some action now or in the future. The cost of not tackling climate change is substantially higher (and) far outweighs the cost of some of the steps that we need to take if we are to tackle this problem.

QUESTION (IANS): Madam, India’s FDI in Britain has exceeded that of Britain in India. Our Prime Minister has been talking about foreign investment in infrastructure sector. Is Britain looking at stepping up investment in infrastructure sector in India?
BRITISH FOREIGN SECRETARY: There is, as Minister Mukherjee said already, a very strong economic partnership and flows of investment that we are talking about. India is a very major partner for development and I believe a recipient of the largest flow of development investment that the British Government makes. But, of course, most of mutual flows of investments that we are discussing are indeed coming from the private sector. We certainly encourage British companies to look to the opportunities that there are in India for development to our mutual advantage and see such opportunities in a range of infrastructure. For example, one thing which we are extremely interested in the United Kingdom because that is to everyone’s advantage is the possibility of investment in development into clean coal technology which goes back to the question I was asked a moment ago. It is a technology which we believe could be very beneficial in helping to tackle climate change, one of the aspects of developments of this kind.

We and the EU are working with the Chinese Government already on developing a clean coal demonstration plant. We would be very interested in discussions as to whether or not something very similar can be developed here in India because we see, as I say, tremendous opportunities. One of the features of the Stern report is that he also draws attention to the fact that there are great opportunities for industrial development and for creation of employment. (These are) some of the steps that we need to take as a world community to tackle climate change and that is one of them.

QUESTION (BBC AUSTRALIA): This question is for the Foreign Secretary. I interviewed you last time when you were here as Environment Minister a couple of years ago. I see now that you talked about the fact that the international community should come out within two years probably (with) some kind of treaty which could look at climate change. How much political capital is Britain ready to spend on this considering that your allies in the world particularly the United States and Australia have not yet ratified the Kyoto Protocol?
BRITISH FOREIGN SECRETARY: We have already spent a lot of political capital on it and intend to spend more. You may recall that when a year ago Britain was in the Presidency of the G8 and also of the European Union, we made tackling climate change one of our top two priorities. One of the major steps that we took was to make this very much a priority at the Gleneagles Summit to which, of course, India came and we were very delighted to welcome the Indian Prime Minister and take part in the discussions that took place along side the Gleneagles meeting and to welcome both the statement that was made by those other five countries of which India is one and also the establishment of the Gleneagles Dialogue which I do not think anyone was confident that we would be able to establish at the beginning of the year.

The purpose of that dialogue, to which India is again a contributor, is to have the opportunity of space for more informal discussion about how we deal with these issues. Of course, negotiations, whenever they take place in whatever form, are a matter for proper discussion through the United Nations body. But what we were keen to do is to create a forum in which people can explore the different ideas which are being considered about how we tackle this issue in the future without feeling that they are in a negotiating set of circumstances and they are not being bound by what they say, and people can explore the ideas that are in the public domain. But we have already advanced substantially the role in discussion of these issues with the United States. President Bush did agree to the setting up of the Gleneagles Dialogue, the United States took part in it. Also in Montreal last year the United States agreed to be a participant in talks about how move on beyond the first Kyoto commitment period, which again is not something that I think anyone was confident of, certainly at the beginning of the last year. Even when we went to Montreal nobody was quite confident that the United States will be able to prepare to move forward as they have done. Equally, the saying applies to the Government of Australia. Of course, where there is a difference is that the Government of Australia have committed themselves to continue to meet their Kyoto targets even though they are not signatories to the Kyoto Protocol. So, there is a somewhat different approach there and, of course, both countries are part of the Asia Pacific Partnership.

QUESTION (CNN-IBN): This question is for the Indian Foreign Minister and the British Foreign Secretary. Sir, do you believe that there are double standards on India’s war against terror as far as the western countries are concerned? India’s big concern is Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. Did you put across that to your British counterpart? Madam, your intelligence agencies have a pretty robust relationship with the ISI. In that situation, is your Government in a position to lean on Islamabad?
EXTERNAL AFFAIRS MINISTER: My response to the question is, terrorist activities are not confined to any territorial limit. This is a menace, perhaps the biggest menace, to world peace in the post-Cold War era. Therefore, all countries will have to work collectively to fight this menace and to eradicate it. Of course, we discussed the problems in all its dimensions but it is not any country-specific.

BRITISH FOREIGN SECRETARY: I strongly share that view. As you probably know, our own Prime Minister expressed the view quite recently that terrorism is a threat to all countries wherever it arises and that all of us must do what we can to work together and to tackle and to try to solve those problems because the terrorists are interested only in violence in a whole number of parts of the world and are operating counter to the interests of everyone except themselves. So, it is very important that as a world community, we all do everything we can to help to counter their activities.

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