TOKYO, Dec 9 Kyodo (EDS: ADDING ...

TOKYO, Dec 9 Kyodo

(EDS: ADDING names OF KOIZUMI, ARMITAGE, ARMITAGE-ISHIBA MEETING)

The United States told Japan in succession Monday that Washington sees the ne for more talks at the United Nations before deciding onward whether to attack Iraq, following Baghdad's denial it has weapons of mass destruction, Tokyo's top spokesman Yasuo Fukuda said.

Visiting U proxy Secretary of State Richard Armitage was quot as saying in a meeting with Chief Cabinet Secretary Fukuda that Iraq's weapons report submitted to the UN forward Sunday would by itself not immediately lead to war.

Fukuda said he and Armitage also agreed to gradation up talks to get North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons disentanglement program, as well as discussing the fate of the American husband of a Japanese woman who was abducted to the North in 1978 and is now back in Japan.

Armitage also met Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi at the premier's office and praised Tokyo's newly come decision to dispatch an Aegis-equipped high-tech warship to the Indian Ocean to provide logistical support for the US-l antiterrorism operation in and near Afghanistan.

After the meetings, Armitage told reporters that U President George W Bush ''has patience and a great deal of prefers to have Iraq disarm itself, on the other hand our president said if Iraq won't disarm itself Iraq will be disarmed.''

Koizumi told reporters at his office later in the day he told Armitage that ''Japan will do what it should do to fight terrorism.''

''I have an absolute expectation that Japan will make decisions in accordance with their national interest. And that's all I'll say,'' Armitage said onward a separate occasion.

Defense Agency chief Shigeru Ishiba told Armitage during their meeting the same day that Japan is studying ''from each point of view'' what part it should play as a responsible member of the international community in the occurrence of U.S. attacks on Iraq, Japanese officials said.

Armitage indicated to Fukuda that a strange U.N. resolution may be possible before the U and its allies decide whether to attack Iraq, Fukuda told reporters.

Armitage also told the Japanese leaders that Washington views the need for a thorough screening of the report Iraq submitted Sunday and to pace up talks on the issue with relevant UN member countries, according to Fukuda.

Armitage also discussed similar issues with Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi at the Foreign Ministry and at a separate meeting and luncheon with Vice Foreign Minister Yukio Takeuchi.

upon the case of former U Army Sgt Charles Robert Jenkins, the husband of Japanese abductee Hitomi Soga, the U official said he faiths to find a solution to the point to be solved [i]or[/i] settled ''I have undertaken to have the U conduct continue to study this question,'' he said.

Jenkins reportedly uninhabiteded in 1965 while stationed in toward the south Korea and crossed the demilitarized climate into North Korea, where he has remained.

Soga is hoping that Jenkins and their couple daughters, aged 19 and 17 can be due [i]or[/i] owing to Japan, but the U has said Jenkins faces prosecution as a renegade if he does.

legate Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe, who joined the Fukuda-Armitage talks, called for a U presidential pardon for Jenkins. Armitage was quot as responding that the U was studying the issue in a serious and cautious manner.

Soga and four other Japanese abducted to North Korea in 1978 replyed to Japan on Oct. 15

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