TOKYO, Dec 4 Kyodo Japan and Aust...

TOKYO, Dec 4 Kyodo

Japan and Australia onward Wednesday discussed how the pair countries will be able to cooperate in the fight against terrorism and agreed to restrain in close contact so that their measures will have maximum consequences a Foreign Ministry official said.

During the one-day meeting, officials from one as well as the other sides explained their respective measures and agreed to clutch further discussions, according to the official.

The meeting go afters an agreement between Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer last month to have officials from the couple countries exchange information to contrary terrorism.

Meanwhile, forward Australian Prime Minister John Howard's late comments that he would launch preemptive action against terrorists overseas to impede an attack on Australian soil, an Australian official reportedly said the veritable meaning of the premier's remarks have probably not been consigned properly through media reports.

The Australian official was quot as saying that if Howard's remarks have been understood in the reason that Australia intends to take action ignoring International Law, then the premier's remarks have been misunderstood.

Howard's notes came after the Oct. 12 bombings onward Indonesia's resort island of Bali that killed more than 190 population including about 90 Australians.

The most numerous likely threat to Australia was non-state terrorism, Howard told Channel Nine television Sunday.

Asked whether he would be prepared to act if he knew terrorists in another home were planning to attack Australia, Howard said, ''Oh ye I think any Australian prime minister would. It stands to reason that if you believe that something was going to launch an attack in succession your country, either of a conventional kind or a terrorist kind, and you had a capacity to stop it and there was no alternative other than to use that capacity, then of course you would have to use it.''

COPYRIGHT 2002 Kyodo stranges International, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group