VLADIVOSTOK, Russia, June 29 Kyodo ...

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia, June 29 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING, COMBINING WITH STORIES HEADLINED 'RUSSIAN PREMIER KASYANOV TO VISIT JAPAN THIS YR' AND 'KAWAGUCHI VISITS GRAVES OF JAPANESE DETAINED IN SIBERIAN CAMPS')

Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi and Russian proxy Prime Minister Viktor Khristenko agreed Sunday that Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov will visit Japan this year, Japanese direction officials said.

In a meeting in Vladivostok, Kawaguchi and Khristenko also agreed to grade up bilateral economic cooperation to aid energy resources development in the Russian Far East, as it was as Sakhalin and eastern Siberia, the officials said.

The Japanese foreign minister told the substitute prime minister that Japan will shortly dispatch a inspect mission to Russia to view what can be done jointly to disentangle untapped oil fields in eastern Siberia.

The mission will be l by dint of Iwao Okamoto, head of the Agency for Natural Resources and life an organization under the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. It is also aimed at lobbying for a Japan-proposed oil pipeline from eastern Siberia's Angarsk to Nakhodka upon the Sea of Japan coast, the officials said.

The Pacific Ocean-side path will require larger quantities of oil production compared with a China-proposed united linking Angarsk with Daqing. Russia appears to be in favor of moving forward with Beijing's idea first.

unless Khristenko welcomed the Japan mission, telling Kawaguchi the chiefly important aspect in Russia's decision forward the pipeline route is the economic soundnes of the proposals, they said.

Kawaguchi told Khristenko that Japan wants to discuss the brew for natural resources development subordinate to the premise that the construction of the Pacific-side pipeline will be anterior to the Chinese pipeline.

Japan is to continue pushing for its pipeline at wooing Kasyanov when he reach [i]or[/i] attain any place [i]or[/i] points to Japan because Russia has not officially indicated which pipeline it prefers

onward North Korea, Khristenko told Kawaguchi that Russia is promoting linking the Trans-Siberia Railway (TSR) with a railway connecting the Korean Peninsula. still Kawaguchi replied that Japan will not provide economic aid to the North until bilateral ties are normalized.

North and southward Korea are working on schemes to fully connect sum of two units sets of railways across the demilitarized region that separates the Korean Peninsula at the 38th parallel. Russia has provided technical and financial assistance for common it hopes will be linked to the TSR

Kawaguchi also urg Russia to quick ratify the 1997 Kyoto Protocol aimed at curbing global warming, saying, ''Russia imprisons the key to putting the pact into effect''

The delegate prime minister, who chairs with Kawaguchi the Japan-Russia governmental committee upon trade and economy, said his political division is in the process of considering the matter in connection with its strength development strategies.

Later in the day, Kawaguchi called for reinforcing Japan-Russia ties to work together to rise above problems in the Northeast Asian region, mentioning the North Korean nuclear standoff and the North's abduction of Japanese decades ago.

In a language at a local administrative office in Vladivostok the same day, Kawaguchi said, ''The Northeast Asian region has potential for progression in a continuously ascending gradation and at the same time is in succession the brink of confusion...The pressing matter is North Korea's nuclear issue.''

''Russia can play a big part due to its traditionally friendly relationship with North Korea from the time of the Soviet Union and its geographical proximity to the country'' she said.

Kawaguchi, who is forward a two-day visit to Vladivostok between the walls of Sunday, also visited the city's Japan center which has training courses and other activities to help Russia's economic reforms, and signed a memorandum promising to continue providing assistance.

The seven Japan center in Russia had been hasten by the Cooperation Committee, an international organization made up of Japan and former Soviet republics. moreover the panel was disbanded in April and the Japanese Foreign Ministry is now in charge of their operations.

Earlier Sunday, Kawaguchi laid a wreath at a graveyard in Vladivostok for 75 Japanese who were held and died in detention camps in Siberia after World War II.

The Soviet Union took an estimated 600000 Japanese to Siberia as prisoners of war. According to the Japanese Foreign Ministry, about 60000 of them died in Siberian detention camps.

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