India, Thailand discuss ways to strengthen defence, trade ties

New Delhi, Apr 5 (PTI) India and Thailand on Tuesday held
wide-ranging discussions covering the entire gamut of
bilateral relations with focus on strengthening cooperation in
the field of defence, security and trade.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Thai
counterpart Abhisit Vejjajiva, who is here on a day-long
visit, also agreed to initiate a senior official-level
dialogue between their Defence Ministries.
"The Prime Minister and I have had wide-ranging
discussions covering the entire gamut of our bilateral
relations. We have had a meeting of minds on how to move our
relations forward," Singh said after the meeting.
He said the two have agreed to intensify the
cooperation in the areas of trade and investment, education,
tourism and culture.
"Our bilateral trade turnover has reached 6 billion US
dollars. We have agreed to aim towards doubling of our trade
by 2014. We have agreed to expedite the conclusion of
negotiations on a bilateral Free Trade Agreement that would
include goods, services and investment," he said noting that
India welcomes more Thai investment.
Singh said India sees Thailand as playing a positive
role "in our efforts to catalyse development and improve
connectivity of our Northeastern states with the ASEAN
region", to which the visiting leader assured his continued
support.
India and Thailand have active exchanges in the fields
of defence, counter-terrorism and security, Singh said.
In order to strengthen this cooperation further, the
two leaders agreed to establish a regular high-level dialogue
on defence cooperation between the Ministries of Defence of
the two countries in the near future, details of which would
be further finalized, a joint statement said.
"We both expressed our desire to cooperate with each
other to secure the vital sea-lanes of communications which
pass through the Indian Ocean," the Prime Minister said.
Identifying other areas of cooperation such as space
technology, disaster management and science and technology,
the two have agreed that the Ministerial level Joint
Commission will meet this year to follow up on the range of
bilateral initiatives.
Developing close relations with Thailand is an
important component of our ‘Look East’ Policy, Singh said.
India's look East policy is complimentary to
Thailand's 'look West' policy, the Thai Prime Minister said.
Discussions were also held on cooperation between the
two sides to minimize the damage caused by natural disasters
such as earthquake and tsunami and to deploy effective
multilateral early warning systems against them, the statement
said.
Unequivocally condemning terrorism in all its forms and
manifestations, the two leaders stressed that there could be
no justification whatsoever for any act of terrorism.
"Recognizing the common threats to national security from
transnational crimes, including international terrorism, the
two Prime Ministers resolved to significantly enhance
bilateral cooperation in combating terrorism, including in
restricting transnational movement and unauthorized stay of
known terrorists in each other's countries," the joint
statement said.
The two leaders resolved to commit their countries to
improve sharing of intelligence, the development of more
effective counter-terrorism policies, enhance liaison between
law enforcement agencies, provide assistance in the areas of
border and immigration control to stem the flow of terrorist
related material, money and people and specific measures
against transnational crimes, through the already existing
mechanisms between Thailand and India.
Both the leaders agreed that the next (6th) meeting of
the Joint Working Group on Security Cooperation be held within
the next six months.