Press Conference by the Press Secretary 6 April, 1999

1. Ninth Vice-Ministerial-level consultation on the Japan-US Common Agenda on 8 April
2. Statement by Minister for Foreign Affairs Masahiko Koumura on the extradition of two suspects in the Lockerbie incident
3. Assistance from Japan to Kosovo refugees
4. Visit of President Yasser Arafat of the Palestinian Authority to Japan
5. Support of Japan for the Middle Eastern peace process
6. Position of Japan concerning the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) campaign in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
7. Procedure for suspending and lifting United Nations Security Council sanctions against the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya

1. Ninth Vice-Ministerial-level consultation on the Japan-US Common Agenda on 8 April

   Press Secretary Sadaaki Numata: Good afternoon. My first announcement concerns the Vice-Ministerial-level consultation on the Japan-US Common Agenda. This is the ninth round of such consultation and it will be taking place in Washington DC, in the Department of State on Thursday, 8 April. The consultation will be co-chaired by Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs Kouichi Haraguchi from our side, and Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs Frank Loy of the Department of State. There will be various government agencies represented on both sides. There has been an annual consultation at this level on the implementation of the Common Agenda. This particular consultation is being held to review the progress of the various activities under the Common Agenda in 1998, and to discuss the possible future directions of Japan-US cooperation. As you know, the Common Agenda has four main pillars, that is, promoting health and human development, responding to challenges to global stability, protecting the global environment, and advancing science and technology. Under these four headings, there are 18 specific areas of cooperation envisaged. There will be a review of the activities in all these areas and at the same time, in discussing future cooperation, we expect that there will be some focus on the economic and social problems that have arisen in Asia triggered by the economic and financial crisis in the region. That may include, for example, the questions of how Japan and the United States may be able to cooperate in alleviating the plight of the socially disadvantaged and the socially weak. This consultation is taking place several weeks before the expected visit by Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi to the United States, and although the dates are not announced, we expect the visit to take place in early May. So in that sense, the results of the consultation will be duly reported to our leaders. This whole area of cooperation under the Common Agenda may very well be one of the areas that our two leaders may be looking at when they meet. That is my first announcement.

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2. Statement by Minister for Foreign Affairs Masahiko Koumura on the extradition of two suspects in the Lockerbie incident

   Press Secretary Sadaaki Numata: My second announcement is on the Lockerbie incident. As you know, the two Lockerbie suspects arrived in the Kingdom of the Netherlands on 5 April for trial. We sincerely welcome the report of Secretary General Kofi Annan of the United Nations to Ambassador Alain Dejammet of the French Republic, President of the United Nations Security Council, that the two suspects arrived in the Netherlands on 5 April for trial. Upon receipt of the report, UN sanctions on the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya have been suspended. We highly appreciate the painstaking efforts by all the parties concerned for the resolution of this decade-long Lockerbie case. We expect that the suspended sanctions will be lifted completely as early as possible in accordance with the relevant UN Security Council resolutions. I may remind you that there was one Japanese victim among the 270 who were on board and who lost their lives in 1988.

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3. Assistance from Japan to Kosovo refugees

   Press Secretary Sadaaki Numata: My next announcement concerns Kosovo. We decided in our Cabinet meeting this morning to provide the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) with 1,000 tents as assistance in kind for Kosovo refugees and we are doing this on the basis of the International Peace Cooperation Law. Each tent should be able to accommodate about ten people, so these 1,000 tents are designed to shelter about 10,000 refugees. We are doing this because we are very much concerned about these reports that more than 300,000 refugees have newly-fled into neighboring countries since the beginning of the air raids. Perhaps the number is increasing more than that. The latest report says nearly 400,000 refugees have fled into neighboring countries since 24 March. In the light of this critical situation, the UNHCR has requested Japan to provide urgently 1,000 tents to tackle the shelter shortage. We have decided to do this. It will cost about 130 million yen to send these tents. The bulk of it will be on transporting the tents. We will be using chartered flights and the plane or planes -- I am not quite sure whether it is in the singular or plural -- will be departing tomorrow. We have already announced our assistance of US$ 15 million through the UNHCR and other organizations to respond quickly to the deterioration of the humanitarian situation in Kosovo. We strongly hope that the situation in Kosovo will be stabilized as soon as possible. That is the assistance in kind. We are also dispatching a team to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and the Republic of Albania to look into the situation on the ground to identify the needs for further assistance. Director Yoshitaka Akimoto of the Central and East Europe Division of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will be heading the mission. They will be leaving tomorrow and they will be arriving in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia on Thursday, 8 April. Then they will go on to Albania and they will be leaving Albania on Monday, 12 April and will be coming back to Tokyo on 14 April. The team consists mostly of the officials from our own ministry, but there is one medical doctor in the team as well from Tokyo University. That is, in assessing the situation on the ground and looking into the needs for assistance and so forth. The possibility of some kind of medical aid is one of the areas that we will be looking into.

4. Visit of President Yasser Arafat of the Palestinian Authority to Japan

   Q: Concerning the visit of Chairman Arafat to Japan, which I think will be for 24 hours, I would like to know what Japanese officials are going to inform Chairman Arafat about the Middle East peace process and the situation of the Palestinians with the end of the autonomy period in May?

   Mr. Numata: President Yasser Arafat of the Palestinian Authority will be arriving tomorrow. I believe he is leaving the day after tomorrow, according to the schedule that I have. He will be meeting with Foreign Minister Koumura tomorrow evening and having dinner. I think he will be meeting Prime Minister Obuchi on Thursday morning. We do attach importance to this visit in the context of the fact that we have had a series of visitors from the Middle East and also in the context of the fact that Foreign Minister Koumura visited the region earlier this year. This visit by Chairman Arafat is taking place at what may be considered a rather critical period in the Middle Eastern peace process in the sense that the end-date for the Palestinian autonomy as envisaged under the Oslo Accord, that is 4 May, is fast approaching. The international community is keenly interested in managing the situation in such a way that the Middle Eastern peace process will stay intact. It is with this in mind that Chairman Arafat has been visiting the major countries concerned such as the United Kingdom, the United States, the Russian Federation and Japan. From our point of view, we will be talking to Chairman Arafat on the basis of our position which has consistently supported the right of national self-determination on the part of the Palestinians, including their right to establish a Palestinian state. We look forward to constructive exchanges with Chairman Arafat.

   I might also mention that shortly after this visit by Chairman Arafat, President Hosni Mubarak of the Arab Republic of Egypt will be visiting Japan from 11 to 13 April. We attach a great deal of importance to President Mubarak's visit as well in the sense that he has a very important role to play for Middle Eastern peace in that President Mubarak has effective channels of communication with the major actors on the Middle Eastern scene, that is, the United States, the State of Israel and the Palestinians and the Syrian Arab Republic. He has channels of communication to both sides and I cannot think of any other person like President Mubarak in the sense of these channels of communication, after the passing of King Hussein of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. We look forward to the exchanges to take place between Prime Minister Obuchi and President Mubarak in the context of our desire for progress in the Middle Eastern peace process. That includes not only the Palestinian track but also the Syrian track and the Lebanon track.

   Q: You mentioned that Japan supports the creation of a Palestinian state. However, is Japan going to demand to Mr. Arafat to withhold declaring the state in May?

   Mr. Numata: I do not want to put myself in the position of prejudging what may actually be discussed between the two leaders, but let me say at this point that we have consistently supported the right of national self-determination on the part of the Palestinians, including the right to establish a Palestinian state. It is with that in mind that we continue to hope fervently that the negotiation will be resumed promptly in accordance with the principle of land for peace and that this question of the final status of the Palestinians will be resolved through negotiation between the parties concerned. Our position, if I may add a footnote, on this issue is rather similar to the position enunciated by the European Council.

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5. Support of Japan for the Middle Eastern peace process

   Q: I read in the Asahi Evening News yesterday that they quoted a Japanese Foreign Ministry official that he expected that Japan would apply some kind of pressure on Israel to move the peace process. Do you consider Israel responsible somehow for the deterioration of this process?

   Mr. Numata: Let me say that in our involvement, if you can call it that, in the Middle Eastern peace process, we have always been talking to both sides. We have been talking to the Arab side, the Palestinian side as well as to the Israeli side. In our exchanges with the Israeli leaders, for example, when Foreign Minister Koumura was in Israel, when we felt that certain actions on the part of Israel were not conducive to the peace process, we have been making our concerns known. That is our basic approach. At the same time, if you look at the peace process, the undesirability of certain unilateral actions is something that could apply to both sides, depending on the circumstances.

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6. Position of Japan concerning the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) campaign in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia

   Q: The Japanese Government will dispatch a mission to Kosovo. Will the Japanese Government send any observers to Kosovo, and if so, will they be military observers?

   Mr. Numata: What we are focusing on is how we can best respond to this urgent need for humanitarian assistance. We have been extending this emergency aid amounting to US$ 50 million and this assistance in kind in the form of the 1,000 tents, but the situation on the ground continues to deteriorate. There may very well be further assistance needed. When I talk about further assistance, that assistance may include not just tents and emergency materials but also some kind of emergency assistance in terms of possibly people going out there. However, I do not mean that in the sense of observers as such, but possibly some people out there who can actually help the refugees. That is precisely what this mission is going to look at. They will be looking at the available options for our contribution in that regard as well.

   Q: Regarding Kosovo, I think the Japanese Government expressed its...

   Mr. Numata: Understanding.

   Q: Yes. But concerning the G8 meeting?

   Mr. Numata: Yes, there is this suggestion or proposal about convening a Group of Eight (G8) Foreign Ministers' meeting. Prior to that, the political directors of the G8 countries will happen to be meeting in Dresden, Federal Republic of Germany, from 9 to 10 April. This meeting of the political directors has in fact been set for sometime in the context of the preparation for the G8 Summit in Cologne. However, it is quite possible that the issue of Kosovo will be discussed, so we will be taking part in that discussion if they cover Kosovo as well. In addition to that, there is this suggestion for the convening of a G8 Foreign Ministers' meeting on Kosovo. On that, our position is that we strongly desire an early resolution of the Kosovo issue and we support all diplomatic efforts which will be conducive to the political resolution of this issue and it is on the basis of that position that we will be examining this proposal for the convening of a G8 Foreign Ministers' meeting. However, I think we need to talk with our G8 partners a bit more.

   Q: Is Japan's position still that it understands the current attack by NATO?

   Mr. Numata: In the sense that in the face of the humanitarian tragedy that has been taking place in Kosovo, we understand the use of force of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as something that had to be taken to prevent the humanitarian catastrophe of further increase in victims. In that sense, yes we do.

7. Procedure for suspending and lifting United Nations Security Council sanctions against the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya

   Q: Regarding Libya, I understand that the sanctions are suspended. Has Japan already suspended all the sanctions on its part?

   Mr. Numata: Actually, when we look at the sanctions that were taken under the relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions, there was Security Council Resolution 749 which provided for the banning of air traffic to Libya. That did not really apply to us because we do not have a bilateral aviation agreement. There was also this prohibition on the provision of aircraft parts to Libya. We did implement it. We revised a part of our law to implement that. The suspension of that prohibition will start immediately. There was also what was known as the significant reduction of diplomatic representation. That has been in effect in the sense that the number of staff at the Libyan People's Bureau in Tokyo was reduced from four to three. The staff at our embassy in Tripoli was reduced from four to three and both these offices are represented by chargés d'affaires as opposed to ambassadors. That may increase, but that may take a bit of time. Security Council Resolution 883 provided for financial sanctions in the sense of prohibiting payments to Libya and financial transactions to Libya and also freezing of Libya's overseas assets. All these have been in effect. This freeze can be suspended. There is a difference as you know, between suspending these sanctions and actually lifting these sanctions. As I understand it, the lifting of the sanctions can take place when the Secretary General Annan of the United Nations reports to the Security Council within 30 days that Libya has fully and effectively fulfilled its obligations under the relevant Security Council resolutions and if the Security Council approves it. It is with that in mind, that we said in our statement which I read out earlier, that we expect that the suspended sanctions will be lifted completely as early as possible in accordance with the relevant UN Security Council resolutions.

   Q: Do you have the amount of the financial assets of Libya?

   Mr. Numata: Not very much. Not a staggering amount. Perhaps 1 or 2 million yen. Those are basically Libyan Government assets, the People's Bureau assets.

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