Press Conference, 28 November 2006

Senior Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs Katsuhito Asano to Attend the Third Forum for the Future
Grant Aid to the Lao People's Democratic Republic
Press Occasion by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of the Republic of Indonesia
Speech on "A Broadening Diplomatic Horizon" by Minister for Foreign Affairs Taro Aso on 30 November
Follow-up questions concerning Japan-Indonesia Relations
Questions concerning North Korea Issues
Questions concerning International Tuna Fishing Quotas

I. Senior Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs Katsuhito Asano to Attend the Third Forum for the Future

Deputy Press Secretary Tomohiko Taniguchi: Thank you very much for coming.

May I say first that Senior Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs Katsuhito Asano will be joining the Third Forum for the Future, which the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is going to host on December 1 at the King Hussein Bin Talal Convention Center in the Dead Sea area.

The Forum for the Future was first proposed at the G8 June 2004 Sea Island Summit. Members of the G8 sought to create a forum in which they could provide technical and financial support to governments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the broader Middle East and North Africa (BMENA). Japan's role is to look into how vocational training can be enhanced.

Related Information (Press Release)

II. Grant Aid to the Lao People's Democratic Republic

Mr. Taniguchi: Secondly, the Government of Japan has decided to extend a grant aid of up to 35 million yen to Lao People's Democratic Republic for the Project for the Construction of Hinheup Bridge, which is one of the most crucial choke points in the nation's main transportation route.

III. Press Occasion by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of the Republic of Indonesia

Mr. Taniguchi: President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of the Republic of Indonesia is now in Japan and will appear together with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe later this afternoon for a press occasion. The Government of Japan has decided to extend a yen loan of up to 1.869 billion yen to help support the engineering services for the Jakarta mass rapid transportation project.

Related Information (Press Release)

IV. Speech on "A Broadening Diplomatic Horizon" by Minister for Foreign Affairs Taro Aso on 30 November

Mr. Taniguchi: Lastly, let me just announce that Minister for Foreign Affairs Taro Aso is going to make a speech on Thursday, 30 November at Hotel Okura. You can go to the symposium, and if you are a reporter for the printed media, you can sit throughout the session. For more detail, please contact the Japan Institute of International Affairs. The title is going to be "A Broadening Diplomatic Horizon." But I would like to remind you that the speech is in Japanese without translation.

V. Follow-up questions concerning Japan-Indonesia Relations

Q: I understand that there is going to be some sort of economic partnership agreement (EPA) signed between Indonesia and Japan. Could you explain what that is precisely, and how it differs from a free trade agreement (FTA)?

Mr. Taniguchi: I wish I could give you full details of what the EPA is going to look like, but precisely because Prime Minister Abe and President Yudhoyono are going to sign a paper later on this afternoon, and only after that will an announcement be made, I can give you only a broad sketch of what it is going to look like.

First of all, the coverage is wider than an FTA, in the sense that it is going to touch on such aspects as service trade, capacity building, investment, intellectual property rights, government procurement, and competition policies. Few FTAs deal with these issues. In that sense, the Japan-Indonesia EPA, as has been the case with many other EPAs that the Government of Japan has forged with foreign countries already, is much broader than an ordinary FTA.

What is going to take place this afternoon is that both leaders, Prime Minister Abe and the Indonesian President, are going to agree on the fact that most of the points have been covered already by the two Governments, and so it will be very soon that the two nations will be able to officially sign the EPA. The stress seems to be on what is called capacity building; namely, that the initiative is to try to enhance the manufacturing capacity and competitiveness of Indonesian industries.

That is the gist of what I can say at the moment about this EPA, but I am sure you will hear much more later on in the afternoon today.

VI. Questions concerning North Korea Issues

Q: I have a question about the Six-Party Talks that are supposed to take place sometime next month. There has been a lot of criticism that Japan's focus on the abduction problem has kept the country from playing a more central role in denuclearizing North Korea. Does the Government have any say on that?

Mr. Taniguchi: Sure, I have got a lot to say, actually. The Government of Japan has paid a lot of attention to the nuclear issue, and it has been evinced by the two resolutions that the Japanese Government has taken the initiative to pass through the United Nations (UN) Security Council. The latest one, UN Security Council Resolution 1718, clearly states that North Korea should abandon all its nuclear ambitions, and it has been understood by all the members of the Six-Party Talks and the international community that irreversible and verifiable denuclearization has to take place before North Korea can come back to the Six-Party Talks framework. It has been understood by all the members of the Six-Party Talks that there is no way for us to recognize North Korea as being a nuclear power.

The abduction issue is one of the most important issues for Japan, and for good reason; we are talking about our own nationals kidnapped by a state government, in this case North Korea. What a government of any country can do and has to do for its nationals, if anything, is to protect the lives and happiness of those people, their nationals. Here you are looking at a case, cases indeed, in which Japanese nationals have been elaborately kidnapped through criminal acts by a state entity, which again is North Korea. Therefore the Japanese Government has to stick to this point until the final day that this case is closed. There is no way other than that.

That said, it has been repeatedly stated by the Government of Japan equally that nuclear issues and missile issues are all important, and as I said at the beginning, those positions of the Government of Japan have been repeatedly evidenced by the resolutions that the Japanese Government has taken the lead in passing through the UN Security Council.

Q: Are there any voices in the Government saying that perhaps the abduction issue should be a two-party talk issue, and not something that involves the six parties? Which is to say, that it should be something that Japan and North Korea alone should be discussing, and not at the Six-Party Talks in order to focus on the denuclearization of North Korea at that stage?

Mr. Taniguchi: What the Government of Japan is saying is that yes, the abduction issue is important and will remain important. But saying that is one thing; pushing the importance of the Six-Party Talks has been quite another, and the Government of Japan has never used the abduction issue as a sort of break for the Six-Party Talks to be resumed. The Government of Japan has also repeatedly mentioned that if indeed the Six-Party Talks process is going to restart, then it is going to be a venue where the Government of Japan is going to be willing to raise this issue of abduction again vis-à-vis North Korea.

Q: On a related note, we understand that the North Korean representative to the Six-Party Talks, Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs Kim Gye-Gwan, is meeting in Beijing now with his US and Chinese counterparts. How come from the Japan side Director-General of the Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau Kenichiro Sasae of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has not been party to those discussions?

Mr. Taniguchi: He has never sought an occasion with Mr. Kim Gye-Gwan of North Korea.

Q: Would Japan like to be included in that dialogue that is going on today?

Mr. Taniguchi: At the moment, there is no plan for the Government of Japan to do that.

VII. Questions concerning International Tuna Fishing Quotas

Q: Different subject. Tuna. Earlier this week the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas decided on quota cuts for bluefin tuna fishing, and now we are hearing that the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission's science committee is recommending a cut for the catch quota for bigeye tuna. Is the Government of Japan receptive to these cuts, and what sort of impact do you believe it will have on related domestic industries here, such as wholesalers and sushi restaurants?

Mr. Taniguchi: The Government of Japan has always wanted to be a faithful member of the international regime for the fishing industries, and it was regrettable that some of the illegal activities were actually conducted by Japanese fishing industry people when it came to bluefin tuna. It was recognized that some of the quotas that the Japanese fishing industry has had in terms of bluefin tuna have not been faithfully kept.

That was about bluefin tuna, and you are talking about a different kind, but the same will apply to what you have just stated; namely, that the Government of Japan is going to encourage all the fishing industry people engaged in the fishing of the kind of tuna that you mentioned to faithfully follow the set norm of the international agreement.

You are asking also what kind of impact the reduced quota is going to have for the nation's cuisine and food situation. I do not know; probably the price is going to be higher than it is now, and it is probably going to be difficult for people to enjoy the cheap 100-yen sushi restaurants with the conveyer belts.

Q: Pertaining to the tuna issue, is there any sort of worry that the tuna might go the way of the whale? Japan has the whaling issue, and I remember when I did a whaling story, of the people at the Fisheries Agency said that one of the reasons why the Japanese Government is so keen on getting back the rights to whaling was because they were worried about things exactly like this, where there might be an international cap on other fish too, like tuna. Does the Government have any comment on this aspect?

Mr. Taniguchi: I certainly do understand why you raise that question. I am aware that some NGOs have been pushing as far as to ban all sorts of living creatures from being captured by human beings. I think it is going to be too much for the international community to become like that, that is to say, banning all fishing only because the fish are living creatures. But at the same time, given the huge increase in the appetite among the traditionally non-fish-eating populations for fish and other materials that you can find in the sea and the ocean, there is a tendency that the resources you find in the ocean are going to become even more scarce over time. That is going to make it even more important for the Japanese Government and other Governments to try to be creative in terms of conservation of natural resources, including fish resources. That is as much as I can say at the moment. Clearly, there is no linkage at present between the issues of whaling and other issues related to fishing, such as tuna issues.

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