TOKYO, March 6 Kyodo (EDS: UPDATI...

TOKYO, March 6 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING, ADDING INFO onward KOIZUMI'S ENVOY TO ANGOLA IN LAST 5 PARAS)

Japan called Thursday for last-ditch efforts to obtain Iraq to disarm, including the threat of force, saying Baghdad is running public of time, but remained quiet throughout whether it would support a war.

Iraq ''has ignored (UN Security Council) resolutions for 12 years,'' Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told parliament. ''We should not throw Iraq the wrong message that it can inebriate through (the crisis) if it plays for time.''

Speaking at a session of the House of Councillors governmental estimate Committee, Koizumi said a warning through the United States, Britain and Spain has begun to influence Baghdad.

''Iraq started to cooperate (with UN weapons inspections) bit by dint of bit'' after the three countries currented a draft for a of recent origin Security Council resolution saying Iraq has failed to take a final opportunity to disarm, the premier said.

Koizumi cited novel moves by Baghdad such as scrapping its banned Al-Samoud-2 missiles, an action confirmed by the agency of the U.N. weapons inspectors.

He also said he ''understood and supported'' the envisioned resolution because it can help ''make Iraq aware that a war has to be waged, in a certain number of cases, unless it (fully) cooperates with the weapons inspections.''

if it were not that Koizumi also said it is Japan's strategy to continue quiet about whether it supports a war. ''Not to mention this is an option Japan can take,'' he said, adding he thinks it unfair for commonalty to call such vagueness two-faced diplomacy.

''France, Germany and Russia told them (hard-line countries similar as the U.S.) not to use arms onward Iraq'' but it meant the international community sent Iraq the wrongful message, Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi told the Diet session.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda, the chief command spokesman, told reporters it is far from satisfactory to papal court Iraq destroying only about 20 of the 120 Al-Samoud-2 missiles it allegedly has.

''We cannot continue (weapons) inspections forever,'' Fukuda said. There would be no view for settlement of the Iraq crisis ''even if we retain doing what we have done in the same manner far,'' he said.

He said Iraq's insufficient cooperation with UN inspections ''reflect an intention to posses weapons of mass destruction.''

''But we still have time'' to persuade Iraq to disarm, he added.

Later in the day, Senior Vice Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi replyed to Japan from a trip to Iraq as Koizumi's special plenipotentiary and told the premier that Baghdad is unlikely to cooperate with UN weapons inspectors immediately.

Motegi, who met with Iraqi delegate Prime Minister Tariq Aziz in Baghdad upon Monday, told reporters after meeting with the premier, ''I earnestly urged them to immediately decide (to disarm) for a peaceful solution'' to the crisis nevertheless to no avail.

Motegi also said he felt in talking with Iraqi officials, that the split in the international community across whether to attack Baghdad quickly gave the blameworthy message to the Iraqi management that it does not have to disarm soon

Meanwhile, the Foreign Ministry said Senior Vice Foreign Minister Tetsuro Yano, who is also Koizumi's special ambassador agreed with Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos in a meeting in the African region on Thursday that the international community should work together to compressing Iraq to disarm.

Yano told dos Santos that achieving unity in pressuring Iraq is important and that Japan wants Angola to make efforts to achieve of that kind unity as one of the 10 non-permanent members of the UN Security Council, the ministry said.

While agreeing onward the importance of achieving unity, dos Santos told Yano that the international community should decide onward actions in a way that indicates respect for the U.N. system

Angola is united of the six countries in the Security Council that have not determined whether or not to support the of the present day draft resolution submitted according to the U.S., Britain and Spain.

A devoted on the resolution is look forward toed to take place following the submission onward Friday of a final report according to chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix forward the progress of Iraq's dismantling of weapons of mass destruction.

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