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KYOTO, Japan: Foreign ministers of the Group of Eight rich nations gathered on Thursday in Japan in the shadow of North Korea, which was expected to give a long overdue accounting of its nuclear programmes.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Japan and headed to the ancient Japanese capital of Kyoto for two days of talks with her counterparts from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia.
A range of issues including the Iranian nuclear programme and political turmoil in Zimbabwe is set to be on the agenda for the talks, which are meant to prepare for the G8 leaders' summit in northern Japan next month.
But the nuclear disarmament of North Korea looked set to take centre-stage with the state expected to make a declaration of its nuclear programmes as required under a six-nation deal on Thursday.
The timing of the declaration, which was due at the end of last year, is sensitive for G8 host Japan as it has tense relations with North Korea.
The United States has said it will remove North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terrorism after receiving the documents, despite opposition from Japan.
US chief negotiator Christopher Hill, who brokered last year's deal, was in Kyoto to join Rice.
He cautioned that more diplomacy was needed to persuade North Korea to take the next step in the aid-for-disarmament deal and abandon all of its nuclear weapons.
"The purpose of the six-party talks is of course not to just get a declaration, it's to go from there and get a complete denuclearisation," Hill said.
Tokyo had opposed the delisting of North Korea without progress in a running row over the state's kidnappings of Japanese civilians in the 1970s and 1980s to train its spies in Japanese language and customs.
North Korea earlier this month agreed to reopen the investigation into the fate of the abductees, whom many Japanese believe are still alive.
Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, known as a moderate, has been low-key in his reaction to the likely US delisting, saying that Japan welcomes any steps to rid North Korea of its nuclear arsenal.
"We will be fully involved in this process as a responsible member of the six-party talks," said Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura, the spokesman for Fukuda's government.
"The Japanese government is considering measures to deal with the abduction issue. We have to talk with North Korea on how we will proceed," Machimura said.
But families of the abductees have voiced outrage, saying that the US move would be a serious blow to their efforts to pressure North Korea.
Japanese Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura earlier said he also hoped the G8 meeting in Kyoto would send a strong message to Iran to halt its nuclear drive.
Iran has defied UN Security Council resolutions urging it to suspend uranium enrichment, which the West fears could be used to make a nuclear weapon. The Islamic republic says the nuclear work is for peaceful purposes.
Komura also said the G8 ministers would discuss the crisis in Zimbabwe, where President Robert Mugabe has pressed on with plans for a run-off election Friday after his rival dropped out following violence. - AFP/jk
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