Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Sunday reached out to an aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin, evidently in the hope that the aide can help Japan and North Korea normalize ties.
Koizumi met with aide Konstantin Pulikovskii, a rare person in that he is relatively close to both Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, in Khabarovsk on the last day of his four-day trip to Russia.
The prime minister was quoted by a Japanese official as telling Putin's representative for federal affairs in the Russian Far East that Japan cannot normalize ties with North Korea unless the Pyongyang's nuclear issues are settled.
Mentioning Pulikovskii's close ties to Kim, Koizumi indirectly called for his help in Japan's efforts to normalize ties with North Korea. He said that if relations are indeed normalized, the region covering Japan, Russia and North and South Korea could become "an important economic zone."