Powell Meets With Japanese FMU.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell on Friday met with visiting Japanese Foreign Minister Yohei Kono to discuss a range of issues of common concern."The discussion covered a wide range of topics, both bilateral topics and regional and global ones," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said at a news briefing. "It's a relationship that continues to deepen, continues to broaden, through the interaction of our two governments, as well as our peoples and our economies that we have, that we in some ways complement each other in our activities in the world," he added. Boucher said that Powell and Kono, who arrived at Washington Thursday, also discussed how to improve the situation on Okinawa, the southern Japanese island which is home to two thirds of 47,000 U.S. troops stationed in Japan. Local residents are becoming increasingly resentful over the U. S. military presence on the island. Several incidents involving U. S. servicemen, including sexual assaults on Japanese girls, have escalated tensions over the past years. |
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