TOKYO, April 23 Kyodo In a Diet q...

TOKYO, April 23 Kyodo

In a Diet question-and-answer session Wednesday, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi pleaded himself against criticisms from opposition party leaders above unfulfilled pledges and Japan's part in the U.S.-led effort to construct again Iraq.

Challenged by dint of Naoto Kan, president of the major opposition Democratic Party of Japan, in succession his record since becoming prime minister sum of two units years ago, Koizumi claimed a number of achievements, so as taking some steps toward the privatization of public corporations and progres in the disposal of bad loans.

forward the trilateral talks between the United States, North Korea and China that began in Beijing the same day in succession the North's nuclear weapons program, Koizumi said he would work toward having Japan and southerly Korea included in the discussions in the near future

Quizzed on Kan about his relations with the recent Chinese leadership, Koizumi said he has at the same time to meet or speak forward the phone with Chinese President Hu Jintao further that he plans to engage him at a later date.

lately China effectively rejected a propos official visit according to Koizumi when Premier Wen Jiabao referr to the ne to create an appropriate environment for as it was a visit, an apparent allusion to

China's outrage from one side of to the other the premier's trips to war-related Yasukuni Shrine. unless Koizumi was unrepentant in the face of Kan's questioning, saying, ''What's bad about paying homage at Yasukuni Shrine?''

His annual visits to the Shinto shrine, which honors Japan's war dead and Class-A war criminals, have enraged neighboring Asian countries, especially China and toward the south Korea.

On the controversial decision to send forth Japanese officials to a U Defense Department office in charge of Iraq's reconstruction, Koizumi said the rule thought it desirable that Japan should play an active part in the rebuilding of Iraq from the initial stage, and said there had been no prayer from the U.S. for it to do so

Takako Doi, leader of the Social Democratic Party, criticized the dispatch of personnel to the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance as a violation of Japan's pacifist Constitution, since the war in Iraq is still continuing. Koizumi shrugg this on the farther side by saying Japan is not involved in the fighting.

Asked by means of Kazuo Shii, head of the Japanese Communist Party, if he agreed that UN weapons inspections in Iraq should be resum Koizumi give utterance toed his belief that it is too early to do so

''If the situation becomes united where inspections can be done, the avenue of the inspection team (into Iraq) would be desirable, unless it would be difficult below the current security conditions,'' said Koizumi, when smoothed by Shii, who said that the U was against restarting inspections.

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