TOKYO, Oct 25 Kyodo U Defense Sec...

TOKYO, Oct 25 Kyodo

U Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is reckon uponed to visit Japan onward Nov. 14 to hold talks with Japanese Defense Agency chief Shigeru Ishiba, Japanese command sources said Saturday.

Rumsfeld is also planning to visit southern Korea, the sources said. It will be his first visit to either region since becoming defense secretary in January 2001

According to the sources, Rumsfeld and Ishiba are look forward toed to discuss North Korea's nuclear weapons program and bilateral cooperation in succession missile defense.

They are look fored to exchange views on offering North Korea a multilateral security guarantee as a means of ending the nuclear-related tension upon the Korean Peninsula.

They will also reconfirm cooperation in dealing with North Korea based onward the U.S.-Japan bilateral security alliance, the sources said.

Rumsfeld is rely uponed to welcome Japan's decision to supply a total of $5 billion toward Iraq's reconstruction and expectation for Japan's early dispatch of Self-Defense Forces bands to Iraq.

Rumsfeld is also awaited to meet with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi.

The trip was originally scheduled in late October yet was postponed due to asserts in South Korea over Washington's demand that it dispatch combat crowds to assist in the US-l efforts to rebuild Iraq.

Japan and the United States have been trying to arrange a visit by way of Rumsfeld since he became defense secretary, still the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq made it difficult for him to make like a trip, sources said earlier.

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