6 parties to work on documenting verification scheme this year: Aso

LIMA, Nov. 23 Kyodo - Prime Minister Taro Aso said Sunday that Japan and three other countries involved in the six-party talks aimed at denuclearizing North Korea have agreed to work this year on putting into writing a verification scheme on information which North Korea has provided on its nuclear programs.

In a press conference in Lima, Aso said Japan, the United States, South Korea
and China agreed that ''we'd like to start working within this year to have a
document'' spelling out the verification mechanism, seeing that North Korea
does not seem willing to allow other parties to verify its nuclear information.
The Japanese leader mentioned that the United States removed North Korea from
its blacklist of state sponsors of terrorism because Pyongyang had promised to
allow verification of its declaration of nuclear programs in June.
On the sidelines of a summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in
the Peruvian capital, Aso, U.S. President George W. Bush and South Korean
President Lee Myung Bak held a trilateral meeting and reaffirmed their close
cooperation on denuclearizing North Korea, according to Japanese officials.
China, host of the six-party talks, also worked on scheduling the next meeting
of chief delegates of the six countries -- the two Koreas, the United States,
China, Japan and Russia -- and basically agreed with the other parties to start
the talks in Beijing on Dec. 8, according to negotiation sources.
Aso also touched on the recent murder of a former vice health and welfare
minister and his wife in Japan, saying, ''Settling differences in opinions
through murder can never be tolerated...We will not yield to violence.''
He said he will have Japanese investigative authorities expedite efforts to
shed light on the incident as a man who claims to have attacked the former vice
minister has been arrested in Tokyo.
On Saturday in Tokyo, a 46-year-old man turned himself in to the police, saying
he ''stabbed a (former) vice minister,'' and was arrested early Sunday for
having a bloodstained knife in a rental car which he drove to the police
department.
On whether to submit a second supplementary budget for fiscal 2008 during the
current extra Diet session, Aso reiterated he will make a final decision after
holding a meeting among members of the government and ruling parties after he
returns to Tokyo on Tuesday.
Aso has suggested the government will submit the budget plan during the next
regular Diet session to be convened in January, rather during the ongoing
session.
In the news conference, he also called on Ichiro Ozawa, leader of the main
opposition Democratic Party of Japan, to hold a parliamentary debate with him,
saying he has been repeatedly proposing to hold such a debate session but Ozawa
has not responded positively.
On Friday, Aso expressed his distrust of Ozawa, referring to the DPJ
president's denial of mentioning to Aso about stepping down as a Diet member
last week when he met the prime minister to urge the government to submit the
second extra budget in the current Diet session.
The prime minister's side asserts that Ozawa offered to cooperate with the
ruling camp of the Liberal Democratic Party and the New Komeito party in Diet
deliberations if the government submits the extra budget in the ongoing session
and said he will resign as a parliamentarian if he breaks his promise.
==Kyodo
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