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TOKYO: Foreign ministers of the Group of Eight industrial powers meet from Thursday in Japan, with a long-awaited declaration by North Korea on its nuclear programmes set to dominate discussions.
Top diplomats of the G8 -- Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States -- will hold two days of talks in the western city of Kyoto in preparation for the G8 summit next month.
Japan, which has pushed a tough line on Pyongyang, has hoped to use the meeting to drum up international pressure on North Korea and Iran over their nuclear drives.
But the meeting looks set to be overshadowed by events. North Korea is expected Thursday to hand over -- nearly seven months late -- an accounting of its nuclear programmes required under a six-nation disarmament deal.
Christopher Hill, the US negotiator who brokered last year's landmark agreement, arrived in Kyoto on Wednesday, a day ahead of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
"We believe that the G8 should send a very strong message that North Korea should abide by its commitments to abandon all of its nuclear weapons," Japanese Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura told a news conference Tuesday.
"On Iran, I hope we speak with one united voice that it should abide by UN Security Council resolutions," which call on the Islamic republic to halt uranium enrichment, Komura said.
He said that the G8 foreign ministers would also discuss the crisis in Zimbabwe, where main opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai pulled out of a runoff election marred by violence.
But the timing of the North Korean declaration during the G8 talks could prove to be an embarrassment for Japan.
The United States has agreed to remove North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terrorism in return for the declaration. The move would open the way for the impoverished state to receive US aid and international loans.
Japan had adamantly opposed delisting North Korea due to a dispute over Pyongyang's kidnappings of Japanese civilians in the 1970s and 1980s to train its spies.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura said that Japan would raise the abduction issue when leaders of the G8 nations hold their summit from July 7 to 9 in the northern resort of Toyako.
"The nuclear issue will naturally be on the agenda. And the missile and abduction issues will also be discussed as Japan wants them to be discussed," said Machimura, the government's spokesman.
In a concession, North Korea earlier this month agreed to reinvestigate the fate of the abductees, reversing its stance that the matter was closed.
Rice, flying to Germany for the first leg of her trip, promised that the abduction issue was of "extreme importance" to the United States but cited the progress.
"I would hope that Japanese people would recognise that," she said. "This was an issue that was going nowhere until the United States pressed the issue."
Rice and Komura will be joined in Kyoto by Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith, for the latest round of three-way high-level dialogue among the Pacific allies.
Activists have called for rallies in Kyoto against the G8 foreign ministers to protest against globalisation, as well as for an end to US-led military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Protests are expected to be small at next month's G8 summit due to the venue's isolated location. -AFP/jk
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