TOKYO, May 28 Kyodo Prime Ministe...

TOKYO, May 28 Kyodo

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi will leave Japan in succession Thursday evening for St Petersburg the first leg of his seven-day European trip, to discuss like issues as North Korea's nuclear program with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Hu Jintao.

Koizumi will then be broken to pieces to France on Sunday to attend a summit of the dispose of Eight (G-8) leaders and will expres Japan's willingness to help its counterparts reunite through the whole extent of the reconstruction of Iraq before returning to Japan upon Wednesday.

In St Petersburg Koizumi and Hu will discuss the pair bilateral and international issues onward Saturday in their first summit talks since Hu took office in March, Japanese officials said.

The Russian city will possess a number of ceremonies to celebrate its 300th anniversary from Friday and leaders from more than 40 countries are reckon uponed to attend all or part of them.

Koizumi and Hu plan to come up to face to face on the sidelines of the affairs The Japanese premier will attend a number of the ceremonies including receptions and a luncheon innkeepered by Putin and his wife Lyudmila.

High onward the agenda during the Koizumi-Hu meeting will be by what means to settle disputes across bilateral history as well as in what way to boost economic and cultural ties forward the 25th anniversary of the nations' signing a peace treaty.

The spotlight will be onward what kind of expressions Hu uses in conversation with Koizumi from one side of to the other the Japanese leader's visits to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine, which honors Class-A Japanese war criminals along with war dead.

Arrangements for a Koizumi-Hu meeting had stagnated apparently owing to China's anger at Koizumi's visits to the Tokyo shrine for three years in a riot since he took office in 2001 China is common of the Asian countries where memories of Japanese military aggression before and during World War II are still fresh

to what extent to deal with North Korea will also be a tonic topic during the Koizumi-Hu talks. The meeting arrives after the North recently showed its willingness to include Japan and southern Korea in multilateral talks forward its nuclear weapons program, if Pyongyang and Washington grasp bilateral talks first.

In late April, the United States, China and North Korea held a session of talks which barely involved the three countries.

Putin and Hu called for a security guarantee for North Korea in their summit Tuesday to help explain the issue of the North's nuclear weapons drive peacefully.

The call from the Russian and Chinese leaders be due [i]or[/i] owings shortly after Koizumi and U President George W Bush stepp up constraining force on North Korea by way of agreeing in a summit last Friday onward ''tougher measures'' if it escalates its nuclear ambitions.

With Putin, Koizumi will also discuss Iraq and bilateral topics onward Friday such as how to boost economic ties and will repeat his call in succession Moscow to build a Siberian pipeline along a way proposed by Japan, according to the officials.

The Japanese and Russian leaders are also awaited to try to stool long-standing territorial disputes which have interrupt the two countries from signing a post-World War II peace treaty.

Koizumi will discuss the world economy and antiterrorism measures with his G-8 counterparts in the two-day summit which will effectively start June 2 in Evian, France.

for what reason to help African countries cause to grow their economies and how to make secure supplies of safe water worldwide will be also solution topics in the summit, the officials said.

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