FOCUS: Koizumi instructs ministers to go to unvisited countries

TOKYO, June 20 Kyodo

With the long ordinary session of the Diet just completed, members of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's cabinet face the task of carrying out ''strategic diplomacy'' aimed at paying calls on countries no ministerial level Japanese official has ever visited.

''There are many countries that Japanese (cabinet) ministers have not visited,'' Koizumi was quoted as saying at an informal gathering of his cabinet members June 9. ''If (you) have time, it would be good if you could divide (trips) and go.''

His remark, which was seen as an instruction or an order, appeared to indicate his enthusiasm for recovery from a no way out situation in his diplomacy centering on Asia over his visits to Yasukuni Shrine, where Japanese war dead, including Class A war criminals, are enshrined.

Foreign Ministry sources said there are 82 countries Japanese cabinet ministers have yet to visit but added it will be ''absolutely impossible'' for them to journey to such nations with Koizumi likely to step down in September.

Koizumi's term as president of the Liberal Democratic Party ends in September. Although he has not formally declared his intention to step down, he refused to extend the 150-day ordinary Diet session, bringing it to a close Sunday.

The end of the parliamentary session was considered a decision Koizumi made to enable some cabinet ministers to openly prepare for the party presidential election scheduled for September.

The post of LDP president carries with it the premiership because an overwhelming number of seats the party holds in the House of Representatives with its coalition partner New Komeito.

During the Golden Week holiday period between late April and early May, Koizumi visited Ethiopia, Ghana and Sweden as the first incumbent Japanese prime minister ever to do so.

A senior Foreign Ministry official said Koizumi received a warm welcome from his hosts who highly valued his visits. He quoted the prime minister as saying it is important and far better for Cabinet ministers to make trips to other countries than visiting only the United States and China.

It is also believed important for those holding ministerial posts to visit foreign countries to win their support for Japan's deep desire to become a permanent U.N. Security Council member.

Every member of the world body holds one vote regardless of whether it is China, with a population of 1.3 billion, or a small country with only 10,000 people.

That is why a high-ranking Foreign Ministry official said visits by cabinet ministers would help ''flatter'' the pride of leaders of the countries they visit.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe, regarded as a strong contender for party president and prime minister, reportedly said at the June 9 gathering that he wished Cabinet ministers would carry out strategic diplomacy on a global scale. He gave them a list of countries he encouraged them to go.

Foreign Minister Taro Aso, another likely candidate in the party presidential contest, became the first Japanese minister to visit Lithuania, one of the three Baltic States, during Golden Week.

Since then he has been promoting himself as a ''trailblazer'' for strategic diplomacy saying in lectures he delivered in the country that ''member nations of the United Nations alone total 191 countries in the world. Northeast Asian diplomacy is not the only diplomacy (for Japan.)''

The 82 countries Japanese ministers have yet to visit are 36 in Africa, 19 in Central and South America, 16 in Europe and 11 in Asia and Oceania, according to the Foreign Ministry.

Some say Japan would be able to accomplish ministerial-level visits to the 82 countries by sometime in September if senior vice ministers and parliamentary secretaries could represent their ministers on such assignments.

The countries include such island nations as Kiribati, Tuvalu and Nauru with less than 100,000 people.

A senior Foreign Ministry official said there are countries that a roundtrip visit will take ministers at least a week to complete.

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