Japan's Mori vows to improve ties with North Korea, Russia

July 28, 2000
Web posted at: 1:50 PM HKT (0550 GMT)

TOKYO (Reuters) -- Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori said Friday that he would do whatever he could to try to establish diplomatic relations with North Korea, and he vowed to strengthen often prickly ties with Russia and China.

In a policy speech to the Lower House of parliament, Mori trumpeted his successful chairing of the Group of Eight, or G8, summit last weekend.

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"We will proceed with an independent and creative diplomacy built on the substantial results gained from the Okinawa summit, and seek a 'rebirth of diplomacy," Mori said.

He said he would closely coordinate with the United States, South Korea and other countries to usher in a new era in Northeast Asia. "I will do my best to normalize relations between Japan and North Korea and resolve pending issues including security and humanitarian issues," Mori said.

The foreign ministers of Japan and North Korea agreed during a historic first meeting in Bangkok on Wednesday to resume stalled talks on normalizing relations from August 21 to 25 in Tokyo.

Negotiators from the two countries met in April in Pyongyang to resume normalization talks that had collapsed in 1992.

Japanese officials have said, however, that huge hurdles must be cleared before progress can be expected towards establishing diplomatic ties.

These include the issue of 10 Japanese who Tokyo believes were kidnapped by North Korean agents in the 1970s and 1980s.

As most Western countries have responded positively to Stalinist North Korea's recent diplomatic drive to inch out of its Cold War isolation, Japan fears being left out unless it quickly improves ties with its former colony, analysts said.

In the Pyongyang talks in April, North Korea had demanded Japan stop raising the issues of the alleged abductions and the communist state's missile programme.

But Japan is adamant the abduction issue be resolved before progress can be made towards formal diplomatic ties. North Korea has repeatedly denied abducting anyone, but has pledged to launch an investigation into the fate of missing Japanese nationals.

That is in addition to differences over compensation. Japanese officials said Tokyo will not accept North Korea's demand that it pay reparations for its colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula, although it would accept Pyongyang's demands for an apology for harm done during that period.

Mori also said he would try to boost economic ties and work towards signing a peace treaty with Moscow when Russian President Vladimir Putin visits Japan in early September. On his scheduled meeting with Putin, he said: "I'd like to have a frank exchange of views based on a relationship of trust."

In an interview earlier this month, Putin said Japan and Russia were "natural partners" in the post-Cold War era, as they were direct neighbors and each had things the other lacked.

Putin's predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, and then Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto vowed in 1997 to work towards clinching a peace treaty by the end of 2000, formally ending World War II hostilities.

But a continuing dispute over the ownership of four small islands off Japan seized by Soviet troops in 1945 has clouded the prospects for such a treaty. Tokyo wants Moscow to return the islands, but Russia says it cannot trade its territory.

Mori said he would try to shore up often testy ties with China when he welcomed Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji in Tokyo in mid-October.

Overshadowing bilateral ties is China's keen sensitivity about its sufferings from Japan's military aggression in the 1930s and 1940s, an issue which soured President Jiang Zemin's visit to Tokyo in 1998.

China has repeatedly said that Japan's security arrangements with the United States are designed to protect Taiwan -- which it views as a renegade province -- in the event of Chinese military action against the island.

The new defense guidelines enacted last year authorized Japan's military to provide logistical support to the U.S. military in the event of an "emergency" in northern Asia.

Earlier this year, Japan threatened to cut its economic aid to Beijing, saying China should disclose its spending on its 2.5-million-member People's Liberation Army.

Japan extended 2.48 trillion yen ($22.73 billion) in economic assistance to China over a 20-year period that ended in March 1999.

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