Castro offers to play role in Korean nuclear crisis

By Shigemi Sato

TOKYO: Cuban President Fidel Castro offered here Sunday to play a role in settling the nuclear crisis over North Korea, despite describing his links with the hardline Asian communist state as limited.

Castro made the remarks when he met with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, the day after he arrived here on a three-day visit, the last leg of a four-nation Asian swing, Japanese officials said.

“It takes political efforts to solve the problem,” the veteran head of the Cuban revolution, who has led his Caribbean island nation for more than four decades, was quoted as telling Koizumi.

Castro, 76, who had personal trust with North Korea’s late president Kim Il-Sung who died in 1994, called Cuban’s friendly relationship with North Korea as “not so close as before,” the officials said. “But I am ready to do whatever is possible within my capacity,” Castro said, adding that he did not have close contact with North Korea’s current absolute leader Kim Jong-Il, the eldest son of Kim Il-Sung.

Earlier in the day, Castro met Tamisuke Watanuki, the speaker of Japan’s House of Representatives, and said he could possibly “convey a message” to Pyongyang’s leadership.

He added that the situation in North Korea has become “dangerous” since George W. Bush became US president in early 2001. “Both China and Russia do not want war.”

Castro said although Cuba has an ambassador in Pyongyang there was a “limit to information gathering” and that no one has a “precise understanding of the current situation in North Korea.” Prime Minister Koizumi told Castro that North Korea’s development of nuclear arms and missiles posed a threat to Japan, the officials said.

He added, however, Japan had made little progress in its effort to persuade North Korea to stop the nuclear and missile programs. “We will remain patient in our negotiations,” Koizumi was quoted as saying.

The nuclear stand-off erupted in October after the United States accused North Korea of running a secret uranium-enrichment program and later cut off fuel aid to the energy-starved regime. Pyongyang responded by expelling inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), depriving the United Nations nuclear watchdog of its means of checking on the North’s suspected nuclear program.

Tensions along the world’s last remaining Cold War frontier escalated last week when the North said it had restarted the five-megawatt reactor at its controversial Yongbyon complex, which produces plutonium that could be used to make nuclear weapons.

Castro also expressed concerns about a possible US-led war on Iraq. He welcomed Iraq’s vow to destroy banned missiles as “important,” according the officials. “I believe in the possibility that a war can be avoided,” Castro reportedly told Koizumi.

It is the second time Castro has visited Japan. He first visited in December 1995. On Monday, he was due to fly to Hiroshima, 700 kilometers (437.5 miles) west of Tokyo, by a special plane to visit the atomic bomb memorial before leaving Japan for home.

Castro has earlier visited Vietnam, the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Malaysia and China, his key ally.

Relations between Cuba and Japan were poor during the 1980s but improved after the 1995 visit and following Cuba’s help in a crisis when hostages were taken in the Japanese embassy in Peru in December 1996.

Japan’s prime minister of the time Ryutaro Hashimoto went to Havana in 2001 to thank Castro personally for Cuba’s aid. The two held an eight-hour meeting. —AFP

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