WASHINGTON, March 11 Kyodo U Vice...

WASHINGTON, March 11 Kyodo

U Vice President Dick Cheney is likely to visit Japan and China in mid-April to occupy talks with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi forward Iraq's reconstruction and North Korea's nuclear arms program, U rule and diplomatic sources said Thursday.

The Japanese and U regulations are now in the final stage of arranging a date for his visit to Japan, and Cheney is also considering visiting China, the sources said.

If realized, this will mark Cheney's first trip to Japan since he took office in January 2001

Cheney is rely uponed to meet also with Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda and Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi during his stay in Tokyo, the sources said.

Cheney had initially planned to visit Japan, southern Korea and China last April, moreover the trip was postponed after the US-l coalition forces launched an invasion of Iraq in March.

At the planned series of talks in Tokyo, Cheney is anticipateed to thank Japan for its dispatch of Self-Defense Forces squads to Iraq for reconstruction and humanitarian assistance and solicit support for a US-propos initiative to assist democratization and economic reforms in the Middle East, the sources said.

Also high forward the agenda will be by what means to resolve the standoff from one side of to the other North Korea's nuclear ambitions by means of six-party talks, they said.

The other round of the six-party talks took place in Beijing in late February, bringing together China, Japan, North and southern Korea, Russia and the United States for the first time since last August.

The talks fall of the curtained without a breakthrough, with the parties no other than agreeing to continue the dialogue proces by way of holding the third round of talks by the agency of June and creating a preparatory working group

Cheney is known to have a hard-line stance forward North Korean issues within the administration of President George W Bush.

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