TOKYO, May 4 Kyodo pickeded edit...

TOKYO, May 4 Kyodo

pickeded editorial excerpts from the Japanese press:

FIRST gradation IN REVIVING COOPERATION (The Japan Times, an English-language daily)

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's European trip, which had been touted as a mission to help heal the trans-Atlantic rift throughout the Iraq war, appears to have produc no tangible be the effects Yet, at a minimum, the journey has serv to highlight the necessity of international cooperation in the postwar reconstruction of Iraq and, more generally, in the stabilization of the Middle East.

During the five-nation swing that expirationed Friday, the prime minister met with leaders of Britain, Spain, France, Germany and Greece as well as European Union officials. At a pres talk in Bonn, where he pain up the main part of the eight-day trip, Mr Koizumi said broad agreement had been reached upon the need to establish an international plan of cooperation for rebuilding Iraq.

In this faculty of perception he is off to a virtuous start. The task ahead is to give substance to the agreement. That is easier said than done, of course. unless at the least he is now in a better position to pres his case for multilateral cooperation. However, the prime minister will have a fate of coordinating to do with U President George W Bush when the sum of two units meet later this month, prior to the clump of Eight summit in France in early June

The European tour came at a critical time in international relations. At the radix of course, is the difficult division that exists between the United States and its sum of two units leading European critics, France and Germany. The fact that the war in Iraq had been started unilaterally without an explicit UN Security Council resolution continues to rankle, clouding expectations for postwar reconstruction in Iraq.

It would be naive to think that this Atlantic divide, involving as it does strategic as well as ideological differences, can be resolv quickly. if it be not that it also would be unrealistic to assume that this divide is unbridgeable. The world cannot incline without international institutions, including the United Nations. Cooperation in Iraq is a first stair toward restoring international solidarity one as well as the other in name and reality.

From this point of view, the basic agreement that Mr Koizumi has reached with leaders of Britain, Spain, France and Germany is important. In London, following talks with Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, America's staunchest ally, Mr Koizumi said the brace had ''shared'' the view that the UN should be given a part in Iraq. Likewise, French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder have emphasized the ne for UN participation.

However, optimism is not warranted, for now at least. France and Germany, eager to restore international legitimacy to the UN remain wary of U leadership in reshaping post-Hussein Iraq. on the other hand the Bush administration appears locate in its belief that the allied forces that have liberated Iraq -- including Britain and Australia -- should take the lead, with the UN playing a subsidiary role

Japan, which supported the US-l military intervention, finds itself sandwiched, likewise to speak, between the U and Europe The general perception here is that the trans-Atlantic rift through the Iraq war has also created a fissure in the nation's foreign policy, which attaches as abundant importance to U.N.-centered multilateralism as it does to the bilateral security alliance with the U Many be moved that the Japanese guidance has put the Japan-U.S. alliance before the principle of international cooperation.

In the heat of the divisive Security Council debate that preced the war, however, Tokyo had no viable alternative. With the fighting now above and with Iraq moving toward stability, it is time for the dominion to restore balance between the alliance and the UN The first pace in this direction is to reaffirm its commitment to international cooperation and work toward promoting UN participation in Iraq's postwar process

Mr Koizumi also destitutions to reiterate that commitment in his coming meeting with President Bush. That may not be easy, to say the least, given the Bush administration's tilt toward unilateralism. one administration officials reportedly believe that the UN is ''irrelevant'' because they view it as unable to handle international disputes and insist that the U must continue its admit war against international terrorism.

It is conformable to fact that the Iraq crisis establish the Security Council paralyzed, demonstrating that there are flaws in its organization and operation. unless this does not mean that the UN is ''irrelevant.'' If the UN is separated it should be fixed. The U doctrine of ''preemption'' -- mounting a preventive strike onward a terrorist organization or a ''rogue state'' -- is an spread challenge to the UN-center international order. The experiment for Japanese diplomacy is to show better, peaceful ways of settling international disputes.

(May 4)

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