JAPAN: U.S.DEPUTY SECRETARY OF STATE RICHARD ARMITAGE MEETS PRIME MINISTER KOIZUMI AND FOREIGN SECRETARY KAWAGUCHI OVER IRAQ DISARMAMENT.

Record ID: 645749

  • Title: JAPAN: U.S.DEPUTY SECRETARY OF STATE RICHARD ARMITAGE MEETS PRIME MINISTER KOIZUMI AND FOREIGN SECRETARY KAWAGUCHI OVER IRAQ DISARMAMENT.
  • Date: 9th December 2002
  • Summary: (W3) TOKYO, JAPAN (DECEMBER 9, 2002) (REUTERS) WS: THE BUILDING SIGN OF THE FOREIGN MINISTRY. VARIOUS: ARMITAGE ARRIVES AND IS GREETED BY JAPANESE FOREIGN MINISTER YORIKO KAWAGUCHI AND SHAKING HANDS AND POSING FOR THE MEDIA. VARIOUS: PHOTOGRAPHERS PAN TO BILATERAL MEETING BETWEEN THE RICHARD ARMITAGE AND YORIKO KAWAGUCHI SEATED AROUND TABLE. (5 SHOTS)
  • Embargoed: 24th December 2002 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: TOKYO, JAPAN
  • Country: Japan
  • Topics: General,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVALVYAXAIJLHOWFZ33LGQ4HGCL
  • Story Text: U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage has said that U.S. President George W. Bush was willing to be patient with Iraq but that if Baghdad did not disarm itself, it would eventually be disarmed.
    U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage met early on Monday (December 9) with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in Tokyo.
    After the meeting that was originally scheduled to be only with Japan's top government spokesperson but which Koizumi joined half-way through, Armitage told reporters that U.S.
    President George W. Bush was willing to be patient with Iraq.
    However he added that if Baghdad did not disarm itself, it would eventually be disarmed.
    "I think I made it clear that President Bush has patience.
    He would much prefer to have Iraq disarm herself.
    "But, as the president said, if Iraq won't disarm, then eventually Iraq will be disarmed," Armitage added.
    Armitage, in Tokyo at the start of a four-nation Asian tour added:
    "President Bush has made no such determination as yet. We, and hopefully the international community, will keep the pressure on. We believe that's the best opportunity we have to get Saddam Hussein to disarm."
    Armitage's trip, which will also take him to Seoul, Beijing and Canberra, comes as United Nations arms experts begin scrutinising Iraq's massive arms dossier submitted on Saturday, which Baghdad says proved it had no weapons of mass destruction.
    But even before the documents were turned over by Iraq on Saturday, Washington insisted it had evidence that Iraq had retained or accelerated arms programmes over the past four years.
    Calling Japan "our most important ally in Asia," Armitage thanked Tokyo for a decision last week to send a high-tech Aegis destroyer to the Indian Ocean, a controversial move analysts said was a sign of tacit support for a possible U.S.
    attack on Iraq.
    Eager to avoid a rerun of its diplomatic embarrassment when it provided funds but no troops for the 1991 Gulf War, Japan last year passed a law enabling it to deploy naval ships to support the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan -- its first military dispatch into a war situation since World War Two.
    Officials have said it would be tough to apply that law to logistical support for military action against Iraq.
    But Tokyo is pondering what non-combat measures it can take, including the dispatch of military personnel to help rebuild Iraq after an attack, a step that would require new legislation.
    Armitage, who later met Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi, also touched base on the thorny topic of North Korea, which Bush has dubbed an "axis of evil" along with Iraq and Iran.
    Washington says Pyongyang has admitted to pursuing a nuclear arms programme, in violation of a 1994 landmark pact.
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