JAPAN: US SECRETARY OF STATE COLIN POWELL HAS TALKS WITH JAPANESE PRIME MINISTER JUNICHIRO KOIZUMI AT START OF FOUR DAY VISIT TO ASIA
Record ID:
222877
JAPAN: US SECRETARY OF STATE COLIN POWELL HAS TALKS WITH JAPANESE PRIME MINISTER JUNICHIRO KOIZUMI AT START OF FOUR DAY VISIT TO ASIA
- Title: JAPAN: US SECRETARY OF STATE COLIN POWELL HAS TALKS WITH JAPANESE PRIME MINISTER JUNICHIRO KOIZUMI AT START OF FOUR DAY VISIT TO ASIA
- Date: 22nd February 2003
- Summary: (W4) TOKYO, JAPAN (FEBRUARY 22, 2003) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. WIDE OF PLANE ARRIVING AT AIRPORT 0.05 2. CLOSE OF U.S. FLAG ON TAIL OF PLANE 0.10 3. SLV PEOPLE WAITING BY PLANE 0.15 4. SMV OFFICIALS WAITING ON RUNWAY 0.21 5. VARIOUS, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE COLIN POWELL WALKING DOWN PLANE STEPS AND BEING GREETED 0.43 6. VARIOUS, POWELL GETTING INTO CAR 0.55 7. SLV JAPANESE SECURITY 1.00 8. SLV MOTORCADE DRIVING AWAY 1.07 9. WIDE OF EXTERIOR OF IIKURA GUEST HOUSE AT NIGHT 1.12 10. VARIOUS, POWELL SHAKING HANDS WITH JAPANESE PRIME MINISTER JUNICHIRO KOIZUMI 1.23 11. PAN OF SCU POWELL TO KOIZUMI SHAKING HANDS (3 SHOTS) 1.32 12. WIDE OF US AND JAPANESE DELEGATIONS SITTING DOWN FOR MEETING 1.43 13. SMV CABINET SECRETARY YASUO FUKUDA AND FOREIGN MINISTER YORIKO KAWAGUCHI 1.49 14. PAN INTO POWELL AND KOIZUMI TALKNG 1.57 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 9th March 2003 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: TOKYO, JAPAN
- Country: Japan
- Reuters ID: LVAC8P758CUMR6JLBNYI3SGQAVW0
- Story Text: U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has arrived in
Tokyo for the start of a four-day trip to East Asia that is
expected to focus on North Korea.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's trip to East
Asia kicked off in Tokyo on Saturday (February 22). Talks are
expected to focus on North Korea but Powell is also expected
to try and shore up support for a U.S-led war against Iraq.
The U.S. Secretary of State will also visit Beijing and Seoul.
China has so far resisted a possible U.S.-led attack on Iraq.
Soon after arriving in Tokyo, Powell, met with Prime
Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Foreign Minister Yoriko
Kawaguchi.
Powell earlier revived the possibility that the United
States could offer broad assistance to North Korea but said it
must first scrap its suspected nuclear weapons programme. He
stressed the U.S. desire for a multilateral push to persuade
North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions despite the
preference of its regional allies that Washington try to
resolve the issue in direct, bilateral talks with Pyongyang.
Powell also said he was likely to announce on his trip that
the United States would provide fresh food assistance to North
Korea, stressing the U.S. position that it does not use such
aid as a political tool and that it has not offered any since
December because it lacked budget authority from Congress.
The United States has sought without much visible success
to persuade regional powers, notably China, to pressure North
Korea to abandon its suspected nuclear weapons programme.
North Korea wants a nonaggression pact with the United
States and bilateral talks, something others in the region,
particularly China and South Korea, favour but Washington has
resisted, pushing instead for a multilateral process.
U.S. officials say they will not be blackmailed, pointing
to the 1994 Agreed Framework under which North Korea promised
to freeze its nuclear weapons programme in exchange for fuel
oil and provision of two Western-financed nuclear reactors as
an example of Pyongyang wresting concessions through "bad
behaviour."
The latest crisis began in October, when U.S. officials
said North Korea had admitted to pursuing a covert nuclear
weapons programme in violation of its international
commitments. It has since escalated as Pyongyang expelled
International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors, said it would
pull out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and
threatened to resume missile testing and abandon the 1953
Korean War armistice.
On Sunday (February 23), Powell heads to Beijing where he
is expected to meet Chinese President Jiang Zemin and his
presumed successor, Hu Jintao, as well as Chinese Foreign
Minister Tang Jiaxuan. U.S. officials want China to push
harder in urging North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions.
Powell wraps up his journey in Seoul to attend the
inauguration of South Korean President-elect Roh Moo-hyun.
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