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EU & Japan discuss new decade of cooperation

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January 16, 2001 

STOCKHOLM-- (AP) , Japan's foreign minister on Monday called on the European Union to keep the problem of global warming on its agenda.

Japanese Foreign Minister Yohei Kono said negotiators came close to an agreement at talks in November aimed at cutting the gases blamed for pushing up world temperatures, but they ultimately broke down.

"Lest this momentum should be lost, the efforts for consensus must be maintained," Kono said after meeting with top EU officials. "I hope the European Union will also make efforts to organize international consensus on this matter."

Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh, whose country holds the six,month rotating EU presidency, was pessimistic.

"Of course we will do our utmost during the Swedish presidency ... to continue the negotiations on climate," she said at a joint news conference. "But unfortunately it looks very complicated for the moment."

Talks in The Hague, Netherlands, which were supposed to work out details of the Kyoto protocol of 1997 for reducing greenhouse gas emissions believed to be heating the planet, failed over disputes about counting the carbon dioxide absorbed by already existing forests and farmlands toward emissions reduction targets.

But the 15,nation European Union and Japan promised to step up cooperation in many areas, including conflict prevention and arms control. The officials said they were drafting an action plan that could be ready as soon as an EU summit scheduled for June in Goteborg.

Japan and the EU also plan a separate summit, but the date has not been set.

"We have an exceptionally good and constructive relationship with Japan right across the board," EU commissioner for external affairs Chris Patten said. "We're hoping in that action plan to give precise examples of the sort of areas in which we can cooperate in the next few years which we'll be able to use as a checklist."