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Japan PM plans to relaunch UN Security Council drive
AFP
BERLIN
Petroleumworld.com 01 11 07Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Wednesday he wanted to relaunch Tokyo's bid to win a permanent seat on the UN Security Council along with key partners, after talks in Germany.
In a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Abe also earned her support on his tough stance on North Korea's nuclear program, as well as assurance that the EU will maintain its arms embargo against China.
Abe told reporters in Berlin after the meeting that Tokyo was vetting new ideas to reform the Security Council after an initiative with key partners failed nearly two years ago.
"Japan is considering a new proposal to succeed the G4 proposal," he said.
He did not provide further details.
In 2005, a joint attempt by the so-called G4 -- Brazil, Germany, India and Japan -- to obtain permanent seats on the council fell apart due to opposition from China, which has demanded that Japan make greater amends for the abuses it committed before and during World War II.
The 53-member African bloc at the UN also rebuffed an offer from the G4 to join them in a push to boost the Security Council's membership from 15 to 25, with six new permanent seats without veto power and four new non-permanent seats.
Merkel said Germany still is "interested in a fundamental reform of the UN Security Council."
"We have already worked hard to improve the representation of our countries on the council," she said.
Abe said he and Merkel had pledged to closely coordinate on the international stage.
"We agreed to cooperate on United Nations reform and also on the issue of North Korean nuclear problems and other international problems," Abe said.
Tokyo is a participant in the so-called six-party talks over North Korea's nuclear programme, also involving the United States, Russia, China and South Korea.
Japan has taken the toughest line against Pyongyang with its own economic sanctions, and has repeatedly raised the issue of citizens believed to have been abducted by North Korean agents.
Pyongyang announced in October last year that it had carried out its first atomic bomb test, to worldwide condemnation, following seven missile launches in July.
Merkel said she and Abe had also discussed the long-running dispute over Iran's nuclear ambitions.
"We want to work together on Iran's nuclear programme bilaterally and also within the Group of Eight framework," she said.
Germany assumed the year-long presidency of the Group of Eight most industrialized nations and a six-month stint at the helm of the European Union on January 1.
The UN Security Council voted unanimously in December to impose sanctions on Iran for its refusal to suspend sensitive uranium enrichment work despite Western fears the process could be used to make nuclear weapons. Iran insists that its nuclear programme is peaceful.
Abe also won a pledge from Merkel that Germany would continue to support the EU's arms embargo against China.
"From the German side I can say that we do not plan to change our position, that is, we are not considering lifting the arms embargo," Merkel told reporters.
The United States and Japan fear lifting the ban would break the military balance in the Taiwan Strait.
China regards Taiwan as a renegade province that must eventually be reunified with the mainland, by force if necessary, even though the island has been governed separately since the end of a civil war in 1949.
On the energy front, Abe told Merkel that Russia should not use its energy muscle for political purposes, Japanese officials said, amid a Russia-Belarus row that has disrupted Russian oil deliveries to Germany.
Abe, on the second leg of a four-nation European tour, met the German leader for the first time since he replaced Junichiro Koizumi as premier last September.
AFP 10 1748 GMT 01 07
Copyright© 2001 AFP.All Rights Reserved.
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