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Koizumi Asks Lawmakers to Help Realize Talks With S. Korea
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Wednesday asked lawmakers involved in Japan-South Korea relations to help him realize a summit meeting with South Korean President Kim Dae Jung, the lawmakers said.
Tsutomu Kawara, vice chairman of the Japan-South Korea lawmakers' league, and Fukushiro Nukaga, its secretary general, said the premier made the request in a meeting at his official residence.
Koizumi wants to meet with Kim to mend bilateral ties that have soured over his visit last month to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, which honors war criminals along with Japan's war dead, and the dispute over Japanese school history textbooks that critics say whitewash Japan's wartime aggression.
Koizumi was quoted as saying in Wednesday's meeting that Japan's relationship with South Korea is one of its most important bilateral ties.
Kawara and Nukaga, who visited South Korea in late August, said they told the premier they agreed with South Korean legislators to try to hold a meeting of lawmakers from the two countries by the end of the year.
Both Kawara and Nukaga are House of Representatives members in Koizumi's ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
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