Uzbek President Islam Karimov will hold talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh tomorrow, during which the two leaders will discuss ways to strengthen bilateral ties.
Nearly a dozen pacts will be inked between India and Uzbekistan, including in the field of oil and gas and minerals, during Uzbek President Islam Karimov's visit here which will also see discussions on regional and international issues.
Karimov, here on a State Visit, will hold talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh tomorrow, during which the two leaders will discuss ways to strengthen bilateral ties. They will also discuss the situation in the region.
Maintaining that there was convergence of views between India and Uzbekistan on the situation in Afghanistan, official spokesperson in the ministry of exernal affairs said "We would like to work together to attain the objective of stability. We already have a good dialogue on this issue. This issue is also likely to figure in the Summit-level discussion between Karimov and the prime minister."
He also noted that there was a robust dialogue mechanism on counter terrorism and the joint working group on the counter terrorism had a meeting in February.
Ajay Bisaria JS (ERS) said India has also initiated robust dialogue with RATS (Regional Anti-terrorism Structure), which is based in Tashkent and was under the aegis of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).
The visit, which is expected to take the ties to "qualitatively" high level, will also focus on ways to enhance trade and connectivity.
The current bilateral trade between Uzbek-India is $151 million in 2010 and there is tremendous potential to enhance it, he said and identified cotton and hydrocarbon as sectors of great promise.
"We expect that at the conclusion of the visit, we will have more than a dozen agreements in place," Bisaria said while noting that there were number of ministers already in the capital discussing various pacts.
This is 5th time the Uzbek president will be visiting India.
Prior to the visit of Uzbek president to India, first deputy prime minister & minister of finance, Uzbekistan, Rustam Azimov met the Indian tourism minister in Delhi and signed action plan on tourism cooperation yesterday.
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