Bush assures Japan on North Korea move U.S. aware of abduction issue, he says G-8 / 2008
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RUSUTSU, Japan — President George W. Bush arrived on the lush and mountainous northern Japanese island of Hokkaido on Sunday for a gathering of world leaders that is to focus on climate change, soaring oil and gas prices and aid to Africa. But first, he defended his decision to remove North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism - a decision that has touched a nerve here because of the North’s past abductions of Japanese citizens.
‘’The United States will not abandon you on this issue,'’ Bush told Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda during a news conference in nearby Toyako, where the leaders are meeting. He added, ‘’I am fully aware of the sensitivity of the issue here in your country. I am aware that people want to make sure that the abduction issue is not ignored.'’
Bush also defended his decision to attend the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Beijing next month - and got some support from Fukuda, who announced that he, too, would go, despite pressure from human rights advocates who want a boycott of the Games to protest China’s crackdown on anti-government protesters in Tibet.
‘’I don’t think you have to really link Olympics with politics,'’ the prime minister said.
Other world leaders, including Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, are skipping the opening ceremony, and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France has said he is considering doing the same. But Bush said that not to attend would be ‘’an affront to the Chinese people, which may make it more difficult to be able to speak frankly with the Chinese.'’
Bush is in Hokkaido for his last meeting as president with the leaders of industrialized nations, the so-called Group of 8. The trip, which coincided with his 62nd birthday on Sunday, marks the beginning of Bush’s exit from the world stage. He is likely to use it to press his fellow world leaders to live up to their past promises to increase aid to Africa, and to forge ahead on a path toward an international agreement on climate change.
But experts say his job, notably on climate change, is complicated by the election back home.
‘’Everyone’s sort of waiting for the next U.S. president,'’ said Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit group based in Washington. Meyer is in Hokkaido monitoring the climate change talks.
Like Meyer, Michael Levi, an energy expert at the Council of Foreign Relations, said he did not expect a major breakthrough on the climate change issue, in part because other countries were waiting to see what the next United States president will do.
He said that the Japanese, who are leading the effort, were trying to ‘’really keep the road wide open while steering it in the right direction, so the new administration can come in and actively engage.'’
As the host this year, Japan is making climate change a major issue.
Fukuda has said he would like to conclude the meeting with an agreement from the countries to adopt numerical targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But Bush has long resisted a mandatory worldwide goal and has insisted that he would not sign on to such an agreement unless developing nations - notably India and China - signed on as well.
Just before leaving for last year’s Group of 8 meeting in Heilgendamm, Germany, Bush proposed his own solution to the climate change problem: a series of meetings among high-polluting nations, the so-called major emitters, with the goal of reaching agreement on a long-term global goal for reducing emissions by the end of 2008. A ‘’major emitters meeting'’ will be held Wednesday in Hokkaido.
At the news conference Sunday, Fukuda was asked if he believed the United States was an obstacle to a climate change agreement. The Japanese prime minister ducked the question, but said, ‘’I think our views are gradually converging.'’
‘’I've asked the president for his cooperation, and he has shown his kind understanding,'’ he added. ‘’What the results will be, well, we have to wait until the conclusion.'’
Regarding the abductees, Fukuda said he had pressed Bush for a ‘’simultaneous settlement'’ in which the North would verify that it is dismantling its nuclear program while at the same time committing to return Japanese citizens who were kidnapped by the North in the 1970s and 1980s as part of an apparent effort by North Korea to train Japanese-speaking spies.
The fate of the abductees has created considerable tension between the United States and Japan in recent weeks, ever since Bush announced that he was taking North Korea - a country he once described as part of an ‘’axis of evil'’ - off the State Department’s list of nations that sponsor terrorism.
Bush made the move in exchange for the North’s long-delayed declaration of its nuclear program to the outside world. In defending his decision on Sunday, the president said he would demand that the North verify that it is indeed dismantling its nuclear program. But he said the first step toward verification had already been taken, when the North blew up the cooling tower of its nuclear plant at Yongbyon.
‘’The destruction of the cooling tower was verifiable action,'’ Bush said, ‘’and that’s a positive step.'’
‘’Now one thing is for certain, the destruction of the cooling tower was verifiable action, and that’s a positive step.'’
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