Environment Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi said Tuesday that she does not interpret U.S. President George W. Bush's recent comments on climate change as an outright rejection of the Kyoto Protocol, and again called on the United States to return to the negotiating table.
"In a word, I think the statement was very ambiguous," Kawaguchi said.
"On the one hand (Bush) continued to use the expression 'fatally flawed' in reference to the Kyoto Protocol. But on the other hand he spoke of a number of measures that should be taken to address climate change, and many of these are included in the Kyoto Protocol."