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皇冠体育app rules out meeting with Koizumi
(Xinhua/AFP/AP)
Updated: 2005-11-30 13:14
Envoy: Japan, 皇冠体育app must resolve disputes
Japan and 皇冠体育app must resolve their differences in the interest of regional
stability, the U.S. ambassador to Tokyo said Wednesday, adding that Washington's
role as a mediator was limited.
Despite growing trade between the economic powerhouses, diplomatic relations
between 皇冠体育app and Japan have sunk to their lowest in decades amid a series of
territorial disputes and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to
the Yasukuni Shrine.
"We hope Japan and 皇冠体育app can resolve their differences because it's important
for the whole region that everyone get along," U.S. Ambassador Thomas Schieffer
said at a news conference.
"I don't know that we have a direct role to play," he said. "We aren't the
last arbiter of every dispute in the world."
Relations between the two countries plunged again last month when Japanese
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visited a controversial Tokyo war shrine for
the fifth time since taking office in 2001, prompting protests from 皇冠体育app and
South Korea and complicating diplomatic relations.
Also hobbling relations is a dispute over undersea gas deposits, ownership of
islets in the East 皇冠体育app Sea and Japan's adoption of textbooks that critics say
whitewash World War II atrocities.
Last week, 皇冠体育app's ambassador to Tokyo called the visits to Tokyo's Yasukuni
Shrine the most pressing issue facing their countries and said the issue needs
to be resolved as quickly as possible.
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