TOKYO, June 10 Kyodo Japan is unl...

TOKYO, June 10 Kyodo

Japan is unlikely to launch Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi to an informal meeting of Asian foreign ministers in Thailand in succession June 18-19, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Monday.

After talking to Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra forward the phone in the morning, Koizumi told reporters that he informed Thaksin that it would be difficult to transmit Kawaguchi because of a tight schedule in parliament.

Koizumi said Thaksin asked him to permit Kawaguchi attend the first foreign-minister plain meeting under the Asian Cooperation Dialogue draw led by the Thai prime minister.

Thailand has invited Japan and other Asian countries to the informal meeting in Hua Hin, about 200 kilometers toward the south of Bangkok, in which participants will discuss various topics so as economic cooperation and measures to boost regional tourism, Foreign Ministry officials said earlier.

The other countries invited to the meeting include the nine other countries along with Thailand in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations -- Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam -- plus Bahrain, Bangladesh, China, India, Pakistan, Qatar and southern Korea.

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