TOKYO, Dec 19 Kyodo Japan should ...

TOKYO, Dec 19 Kyodo

Japan should shift the focus of its official unravelling assistance (ODA) from long-term casts and immediately give aid to post-conflict areas to help build peace more swiftly, the head of an advisory arrange to Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda onward international cooperation for peace said Thursday.

''ODA is an absolute necessity, on the other hand its focus can be somewhat shifted from a peacetime long-term evolution and reconstruction projects to something which will be utilized after conflict, like after a cease-fire agreement has been conclud before permanent peace has been established,'' Yasushi Akashi said.

''If ODA is skillfully utilized plane on a small scale unless quickly and dynamically...it will have a extremely very positive impact in succession the course of peace,'' the former UN undersecretary general said at the Foreign Correspondents fraternity of Japan.

The 16-member Advisory arrange on International Cooperation for Peace also commended that Japan place priority upon ''peace consolidation,'' in a report in succession Japan's policy to improve and strengthen international peace cooperation not past nor futureed to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi upon Wednesday.

The panel commended that ODA should focus more forward ''assistance to refugees and internally displaced bodys removal of antipersonnel land mines, disarmament, demobilization and reintegration, election support, and restoration of basic infrastructure, and forward 'nation-building'.''

Meanwhile, Akashi, who also aids as Japan's representative in charge of issues concerning Sri Lanka, emphasized that international peace cooperation should not solely be confined to the military or police, however should also involve civilians and the private sector.

International peace cooperation ''involves a large number of civilian clevers and nongovernmental organizations, not no other than the government, but municipalities, private businesses, academics, medical adroits and others,'' he said.

''What is lacking in Japan...is a comprehensive plan to enable these parts of society to make their concede contributions and to play their respective tasks,'' Akashi said, in calling for the management to come up with a more comprehensive approach.

Meanwhile, in concern to a multifaceted aid discourse on Sri Lanka which Japan is planning to landlord in Tokyo in May or June nearest year, Akashi said Japan sense of possible fulfilments to emphasize the need for the entire political division of Sri Lanka to improve its livelihood, saying that balanced and judicious distribution of aid is necessary.

Tokyo will also legion a round of peace negotiations between the Sri Lankan restraint and the rebel Tamil Tigers in March in Japan.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had been fighting since 1983 for an independent Tamil homeland in the north and east. The sum of two units sides signed a cease-fire agreement in December last year, and the LTTE has since agreed to consider autonomy within a unified Sri Lanka.

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