India allays China’s concerns over four-nation alliance
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New Delhi, 28 June: Allaying China’s apprehensions, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said that the alliance of India, United States, Japan and Australia was not a security bloc and not against anybody’s interest.
Singh said he had conveyed this to Chinese President Hu Jintao when they met in Germany earlier this month on the sidelines of the G-8 summit and he had accepted the contention.
“It is not any security bloc, we are not ganging up against anybody,” he told reporters on the sidelines of a book release function here last night.
India, US, Japan and Australia have come together for cooperation in disaster management.
The four countries held an official level meeting in Manila a month back to discuss ways in which they could cooperate in tackling emergencies, including disasters like tsunami of December 2005.
New Delhi points out that it already has such multilateral arrangements, involving countries like South Africa, Brazil, Germany and Japan on various issues.
The four countries had closely cooperated during the tsunami tragedy and based on that experience, are looking for institutionalising that.
Earlier, the US also sought to allay any fears on the four-nation arrangement, saying that the four-nation alliance was not against any country.
Filed by Maria Robson under Other