US President Barack Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama plan to call for a nuclear-free world and cooperation in fighting climate change when they hold talks here on Friday, reports said.
A nuclear explosion at the Mururoa atoll in 1971. US President Barack Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama plan to call for a nuclear-free world and cooperation in fighting climate change when they hold talks here on Friday, reports said.
The two topics are expected to figure prominently while no major breakthrough is seen likely in a row over the relocation of a US military base on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa.
The two leaders plan to issue a joint statement, tentatively entitled the US-Japan joint initiative for a nuclear-free world, in the talks shortly after Obama's arrival here on a 24-hour visit, the Yomiuri Shimbun said Thursday.
In the statement, they would welcome rising international momentum towards arms reduction and non-proliferation, the major daily said.
Meanwhile, the Nikkei business daily said Hatoyama and Obama would focus on bilateral cooperation in the development of environmental and energy technologies to fight global warming.
They were expected to agree on technical cooperation in several areas, including the underground storage of carbon dioxide and development of digitally controlled "smart-grid" technology for power transmission, Nikkei said.
The nuclear statement would be based on the UN resolution adopted in September at a UN Security Council summit hosted by Obama, Jiji Press said.
The United States would seek to raise the global momentum, while Japan would push the message from its perspective as the only country to have been hit with atomic bombs.
The statement would also urge North Korea to return to six-nation disarmament talks immediately and unconditionally, and Iran to come clean about its suspected atomic programme, the Yomiuri said.
Obama and Hatoyama would agree, ahead of a nuclear security summit scheduled for March in the United States, that Japan would host a preliminary meeting with Asian countries in Tokyo, the Yomiuri said.
About the author
- Writer: AFP News agency
- Position: Agence France-Presse
