U.S. & World

WASHINGTON (AP) ― Japan's new prime minister, Yasuo Fukuda, and President Bush are looking for mutual assurances. While Bush has a chance of getting what he wants, Fukuda's hopes could be harder to realize.

Bush wants commitments from Fukuda that he will push for renewal of a law allowing the Japanese navy to provide fuel for warships supporting U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan. Fukuda is expected to tell Bush during their meeting Friday that he will work to restart the effort, despite strong resistance from opposition lawmakers.

Fukuda wants Bush to back away from a pledge to remove North Korea from a terrorism blacklist until the North accounts for kidnapped Japanese citizens. Removal from the list is a key North Korean demand in nuclear disarmament talks, and the Bush administration agreed in February to begin that process.

Tokyo argues that ignoring its views could sour an alliance seen as a lynchpin for Asian security. If Fukuda should return to Japan empty-handed on the terror-list question, it could have political consequences for his new administration and for U.S.-Japanese ties.

"It will be viewed by many as a litmus test about how credible the U.S. is, and that's not a test we can afford to fail a year after the North Koreans tested a nuclear weapon," said Michael Green, Bush's former senior adviser on Asia.

Japan is America's top ally in Asia and one of six nations involved in the nuclear talks. But Japan, which has a pacifist constitution written by the United States after World War II, is debating its future contribution to the U.S.-led fight against terrorists.

Specifically, Japanese lawmakers are considering whether to resume the country's naval mission fueling warships in the Indian Ocean. Japanese ships withdrew on Nov. 1 when the opposition party blocked an extension of the operation, saying it violated Japan's constitution.

The refueling issue has been at the heart of political turmoil in Japan. Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party lost control of the parliament's upper house in July elections, although it still controls the lower house.

Fukuda took office after the sudden resignation in September of Shinzo Abe, who made the abduction issue a priority of his scandal-plagued administration. Abe followed the popular Junichiro Koizumi, a close friend and ally of Bush.

Japan believes the terror list issue is linked with North Korea's refusal, in Tokyo's view, to account for Japanese citizens kidnapped in the 1970s and '80s. Japan supported U.S.-led campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan and hosts about 50,000 U.S. troops. But it has warned that relations could suffer if the United States removes North Korea from the list.

U.S. lawmakers in both political parties have expressed worry about alienating Japan.

"Congress will be giving this a very close look," Republican Rep. Ed Royce of California said in an interview. "If North Korea is unwilling to come clean on decades-ago abductions, it bodes poorly for its willingness to honor the nuclear agreement."

Rep. Brad Sherman, a California Democrat, said that U.S. officials "cannot ignore these abductees and expect Japan to be with you."

On Thursday, U.S. officials met with family members of the abductees and with Japanese lawmakers, who urged the United States to wait for resolution of the abduction issue before acting on the terror blacklist.

North Korea sees the terror list designation as evidence of hostile U.S. intentions.

Failure to remove the North could jeopardize years of nuclear negotiations, which the Bush administration sees as a key foreign policy goal.

Removing the North could cause problems for Fukuda, if an angry Japanese public sees him as ineffective in conveying to the Bush administration the depth of Japanese angst over the abduction issue.

Meanwhile, a team of U.S. experts has begun disabling North Korea's nuclear facilities. The North shut down its sole operational reactor in July and promised to disable it by year's end in exchange for energy aid and political concessions from the United States, China, Japan, South Korea and Russia. U.S. officials hope to dismantle the reactor next.

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