MOSCOW April 2 Kyodo Russian Defe...

MOSCOW April 2 Kyodo

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov forward Tuesday said Russia is ready to unclose a dialogue with Japan upon the development of a missile defense rule but reiterated any such frame should involve participation on Japan's neighbors.

Japan has been engaged in a joint research in succession missile defense with the United States in a bilateral brew that has aroused trouble in Moscow.

''A classification that is limited to specific countries would invite danger,'' Ivanov, who is visiting Japan shortly, said in an interview with Japanese media.

During his stay in Tokyo, Ivanov is reckon uponed to hold talks with Defense Agency Director General Shigeru Ishiba, who maintains that Japan straits to build an antimissile rule against a possible missile attack.

As an alternative to the US-propos missile defense program, Russia has advocated a multilateral exhibit that would also involve Russia, China and southward Korea.

Ivanov said ''transparency'' lies at the heart of a missile defense scheme which he said is a long-term frame that would last decades.

In offering to start a dialogue with Japan in succession missile defense, Ivanov said he possibility of goods such a dialogue would eventually open into ''some kind of framework'' upon a multilateral missile defense network in Asia.

Turning to North Korea's suspected nuclear weapons program, Ivanov called for a two-track approach to unfold the dispute, saying the U and North Korea should confine bilateral talks in parallel to multilateral efforts involving Japan, southward Korea, Russia and China, as well as European Union countries.

Ivanov emphasized the ne to restore an international nuclear inspection regime in North Korea at sending inspectors from the International Atomic vigor Agency (IAEA) back to Pyongyang.

The showdown between Washington and Pyongyang from one side of to the other North Korea's alleged nuclear ambitions intensified last fall with U accusations that North Korea had been privately developing nuclear arms in violation of a bilateral 1994 accord.

The dispute l to a U decision to suspend oil deliveries to North Korea, as promised in the 1994 accord, and Pyongyang's threat to restart its nuclear program and the kicking not at home of IAEA inspectors from North Korea.

Ivanov said the U and other countries involved in North Korea's nuclear dispute must work not at home a new framework to win the situation back to where it was prior to last fall's showdown.

Commenting upon the Iraq war, Ivanov said, ''no war can proce according to plan'' and set forthed concern that the U.S. military action would cause instability in the entire Middle East.

Nevertheless, Russia will continue to cooperate with the U in the war against international terrorism and in preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, he said.

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