Japan, Mekong region to cooperate on environmental protection+

TOKYO, Nov. 7 Kyodo -
Japan and five Mekong countries in Southeast Asia agreed Saturday to step up
cooperation to protect the environment and tackle climate change over the 10
years from next year with Tokyo promising more technical assistance for the
efforts.

Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and his counterparts from Cambodia,
Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam embraced the initiative in the Tokyo
Declaration, adopted on the second and final day of the first summit meeting
involving the six countries.
In hosting the event for the countries in the Mekong River region, which is
rich in natural resources, Japan is believed to be angling for greater
influence amid China's growing presence there.
''We shared the understanding that we will build partners for the future of
common prosperity,'' Hatoyama said at a joint news conference after the
meeting. ''Regional cooperation is proceeding to address gaps in the region,
and what sort of role Japan plays in that connection is very important.''
The initiative, dubbed ''a decade toward the Green Mekong,'' is the embodiment
of the ''Hatoyama Initiative,'' proposed by the Japanese leader in September to
provide financial and technical assistance to developing countries that are
working on cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
To encourage the region's further development, Japan pledged more than 500
billion yen in official aid to the countries over the next three years from
fiscal 2010, which begins next April.
Japan and the Mekong countries also agreed that the region should aim to
contribute to the integration of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and
to the building of an East Asian community in the long term.
The creation of such a community is a vision Hatoyama has eagerly promoted, and
he reiterated Saturday that the Mekong countries -- most of them lag behind
other ASEAN members -- would form part of his regional bloc initiative.
''In the meeting, I said that in some respects, the Mekong region holds the key
to the realization of the East Asian community that I have been advocating,''
he said.
The declaration, which was adopted along with a 63-point action plan, spelled
out continued assistance in enhancing both ''hardware'' and ''software''
infrastructure in the region. With regard to the software, Japan pledged to
implement various skill enhancement programs, including customs clearance
training that would help make more efficient use of roads and bridges in the
region.
Japan also promised to invite about 30,000 people, mostly the young, from the
region over the next three years through seminar and exchange programs to
facilitate human exchanges.
The 10-year green initiative will involve reforestation, the preservation of
biodiversity and the management of water resources in the Mekong River system
as well as efforts to tackle climate change.
Concrete plans are expected to be hammered out when senior government officials
of the countries meet in the first half of next year.
On Myanmar, which remains under military rule, Japan and the Mekong countries,
including Myanmar itself, declared that they expect it to take more positive
steps toward democracy.
The countries said they believe that the general elections planned in the
country next year would be democratic with the participation of all political
parties.
The declaration did not address Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar's pro-democracy
leader, who has been detained in the country for 14 of the last 20 years.
But in a bilateral meeting, held on the fringes of the Japan-Mekong summit,
Hatoyama pressed Myanmar Prime Minister Gen. Thein Sein to set her and other
political prisoners free before the elections.
Japan and the Mekong countries urged North Korea to fully comply with U.N.
Security Council resolutions punishing Pyongyang for its nuclear and ballistic
missile activities and to return ''immediately and without preconditions'' to
the six-party talks aimed at denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula.
At the news conference, Hatoyama ruled out the view that Japan is competing
with China for greater influence over the Mekong region.
''Japan and China are in fact cooperating and discussing how we could best
improve our cooperation for the Mekong,'' Hatoyama said.
''It's not a matter of China working more for the Mekong, and that it will
therefore be disadvantageous for Japan,'' he said. ''That's not the point.''
In the declaration, Japan and the Mekong countries decided to hold the summit
meeting every year and make the meetings of foreign ministers and economy
ministers similarly regular events.
Besides the Myanmar leader, Hatoyama also met bilaterally with Laotian Prime
Minister Bouasone Bouphavanh, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung,
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva
later in the day.
In the meetings with his Cambodian and Thai counterparts, Hatoyama expressed
concern about a diplomatic spat between the two neighbors, according to a
Japanese official. Abhisit expressed his appreciation for the concern and said
Bangkok wants to keep the situation from worsening.
On Thursday, Thailand and Cambodia recalled their ambassadors from each other's
countries after Phnom Penh appointed former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin
Shinawatra as an economic advisor.
==Kyodo