Japan, Vietnam agree to work on North Korea, Myanmar

The leaders of Japan and Vietnam agreed Tuesday to step up efforts to ease regional concerns over North Korea’s nuclear drive and Myanmar’s crackdown on dissent.

The agreement came during talks between Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and Vietnam’s President Nguyen Minh Triet, who is on the first state visit from the communist country to Tokyo.

“We confirmed that we would promote our cooperation in handling the North Korea and Myanmar issues under regional and global frameworks such as the United Nations,” Fukuda said after meeting with Triet.

Vietnam has longstanding relations with North Korea, which has tense ties with Tokyo due to its kidnappings of Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s to train the regime’s spies.

Tokyo, although a member of six-nation talks aimed at ending North Korea’s nuclear weapons programmes, has vowed not to help North Korea until progress is made over the abductions.

Triet told Fukuda in the talks that Vietnam would try to help Japan and also supported ending North Korea’s nuclear drive, according to a Japanese diplomat. Fukuda also asked Vietnam to help urge Myanmar to respond to international calls to move towards democracy and cooperate with the United Nations.

Triet said Vietnam, like the rest of the ASEAN bloc, was concerned about Myanmar. But he spoke against Western-led punishment of Myanmar, saying Vietnam long suffered under economic sanctions, the Japanese diplomat said.

Japan has cancelled nearly five million dollars in aid to Myanmar to protest the recent crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations and security forces’ killing of a Japanese journalist as he filmed the crackdown.

Fukuda and Triet also agreed to boost trade, with the Vietnamese leader saying he sought a “high-quality” trade accord with Japan.

Tokyo, Wednesday, AFP