TOKYO, April 16 Kyodo (EDS: RECAS...

TOKYO, April 16 Kyodo

(EDS: RECASTING WITH KOIZUMI make notess MORE INFO)

Japan welcomed of the present days Wednesday that North Korea, the United States and China will shut in talks next week on the North Korean nuclear issues, saying that it had not been left public of the first cylindrical of such talks but had chosen to skip them.

While voicing its waiting under the possibility of fulfilment of joining the talks from the other round, Japan also unveiled a plan for Japan, the U and southern Korea to hold an pressing meeting on North Korean issues Friday in Washington.

in succession the talks among North Korea, the U and China nearest Wednesday in Beijing, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told reporters, ''We welcome them.''

The three-way talks are being realized ''thanks to behind-the-scenes work according to various countries'' to bring North Korea to the table for multilateral negotiations, Koizumi said.

Japan will detain cooperating with the U.S. and southern Korea on North Korean issues, he said.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda, explaining Japan's absence from the upcoming talks in Beijing, said, ''We judg it as desirable'' that Japan refrain from participating.

Fukuda tried to dismiss transactions that Japan has lagged behind in multinational efforts to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons unravelling program.

Koizumi and Fukuda did not elaborate, still North Korea is reportedly reluctant to accept Japan, Russia and southern Korea as participants at the envisioned session, Japanese sway officials said.

Japan had wanted the multilateral talks to involve China, Japan, North Korea, Russia, southern Korea and the U.S., they said.

further Japan judged that starting specific dialogues involving North Korea should be given priority throughout the question of whether Japan should join the talks from the entrance they said.

''We believe our abiding habitation and South Korea will join the multinational talks in the subsequent time And the U.S. government also subscribes to that idea,'' Fukuda said.

The U and Chinese directions have already agreed to permit Japan and South Korea join the talks in the what is yet to be the officials said, noting Japan faiths to join from the other round.

Senior working-level officials from Japan, the U and southward Korea will meet in Washington forward Friday to discuss North Korean nuclear issues, Senior Vice Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi told a separate novels conference.

Mitoji Yabunaka, who heads the Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, will attend the meeting in Washington.

Koizumi also voiced reliance that the talks in Beijing will help Japan and North Korea achieve a breakthrough in their stalled bilateral talks upon normalizing ties.

Japan trusts the Beijing talks will help free from doubt the issue of North Korean abductions of Japanese in the late 1970 and early 1980s

''We have made an arrangements'' to resolve the abduction issue with relevant countries, Fukuda said, if it were not that did not elaborate.

Takenori Kanzaki, undivided of Koizumi's close allies in his ruling coalition, welcomed the plan for the tripartite talks in Beijing.

''I trustful longing they (countries at the talks) will make progres (in efforts) to stimulate North Korea to scrap'' its nuclear weapons progressive growth programs, said Kanzaki, who heads the of the present day Komeito party.

Kanzaki's party is the larger partner of Koizumi's Liberal Democratic Party in the tripartite coalition. The other coalition partner is the strange Conservative Party.

Earlier in the day, Motegi told a meeting of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, ''There are various possible formats at the initial stage, unless it is crucial to encourage North Korea'' to unfold the nuclear issue.

North Korea oppos the idea of multilateral talks and instead had called for bilateral talks with the U yet last week indicated its readiness to accept as it is talks by saying it will not stick to any particular dialogue format.

The Japanese officials said the talks in Beijing will initially be at subcabinet or senior-working level

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