Japanese PM sets 1st visit to U.S.

Source: CNN.

TOKYO, Japan (AP) — Japan’s prime minister will make his first trip to the U.S. as premier this month for summit talks on North Korea and Iraq, against a backdrop of renewed controversy over Japan’s use of military brothels during World War II.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will travel the United States April 26-27 and hold meetings with U.S. President George W. Bush at Camp David before traveling to the Middle East, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki announced Wednesday.

The visit comes at a sensitive time, with U.S. lawmakers considering a nonbinding resolution urging Japan to apologize formally for forcing thousands of women into the brothels.

Abe has come under fire at home and abroad for suggesting in early March that there is no proof that the Imperial government or military coerced women into the brothels during the war, apparently backtracking a 1993 apology.

In a 20-minute phone call with Bush late Tuesday to prepare for the trip, Abe said he stands by the government’s landmark 1993 apology. Abe said he broached the subject to clarify any misunderstandings.

“Since my remarks on the so-called comfort women issue have not been accurately reported, I expressed my true intention to President Bush just to clarify,” Abe said.

Bush told Abe that he appreciated his candor and noted that Japan today is not the Japan of World War II, National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said in Washington on Tuesday.

The upcoming meeting will not be Abe’s first with Bush. The two leaders met on the sidelines of a Pacific Rim summit in Vietnam last year, after Abe took office in September.

Iraq, North Korea on agenda

The U.S. summit will touch on the ongoing war in Iraq, for which Japan has provided noncombat military support, as well as the six-nation talks on reining in North Korea’s nuclear program, Shiozaki said.

“We hope to confirm that the Japan-U.S. alliance is a stabilizing factor for the region, and we plan to discuss ways to strengthen the alliance for the world and for Asia,” Shiozaki said.

Japanese prime ministers usually visit the U.S., Japan’s biggest ally, soon after taking office, but Abe has stressed his all-around foreign policy by visiting Europe and Asian neighbors first.

Abe told reporters Wednesday that the alliance with the U.S. is “the basis for our diplomacy and security” and added that he hopes to strengthen ties with Washington. About 50,000 U.S. troops are stationed in Japan under a mutual security pact as a legacy of World War II.

After the U.S. visit, Abe will head to the Middle East for meetings with leaders of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar and Egypt, he said. Those discussions will include the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, the Iraq war and Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Shiozaki said.

“The Middle Eastern region, especially the countries in the Gulf area, are extremely important for Japan’s energy security,” he said. “We plan to discuss ways to achieve stability in the Middle East.”

Last week, Japan’s parliament approved a two-year extension of its airlift mission in support of Iraqi reconstruction. Tokyo had earlier backed the U.S.-led invasion and provided troops for a non-combat, humanitarian mission in the southern city of Samawah beginning in 2004.

Japan withdrew its ground troops in July 2006, and has since expanded its Kuwait-based air operations.

Abe’s visit to the United States follows a string of other overseas calls and marks a break with tradition for new Japanese leaders who have tended to prioritize U.S. summits.

Abe made his first overseas trip as prime minister to Beijing and Seoul in early October. He visited Vietnam for a summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in November. Abe also met with Philippines President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in the Philippines last month. Abe continued his travels to Europe.

Chad: At least 65 killed in Sudan militia raid

Source: CNN.

N’DJAMENA, Chad (Reuters) — At least 65 people were killed in a cross-border raid by Sudanese Janjaweed militia who torched two villages in eastern Chad, driving up to 8,000 civilians from their homes, Chadian authorities said Tuesday.

Sudan denied any role in the weekend attacks.

Chad’s government said its forces killed 25 of the raiders, some mounted on camels and horses, others in vehicles, who destroyed the villages of Tiero and Marena on Saturday in the Wadi-Fira region of the eastern border with Sudan.

“Chadian military authorities reported at least 65 dead just in the village of Tiero,” Ron Redmond, spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees told reporters in Geneva, Switzerland, in a briefing on the attacks.

Early reports indicated at least 70 wounded, half of them seriously. The death toll was expected to rise as casualty figures from the second village attacked became available.

Chadian Communication Minister Hourmadji Moussa Doumgor said the raiders, whom he identified as Sudanese Janjaweed militia, burned down the two villages, forcing their inhabitants to flee.

“Between 6,000 and 8,000 people are out in the open, without shelter and deprived of everything,” he said, adding that government forces had pushed back the attackers.

The raids appeared to be the latest spillover of violence from Sudan’s conflict-torn Darfur region, where more than 200,000 people have been killed since 2003 in a war between rebels and Sudanese government forces and their militia allies.

Chad President Idriss Deby, who also faces an insurgency in the east, frequently accuses Sudan of sending the Janjaweed — feared mounted raiders whose name in Arabic means “devils on horseback” — across the border to kill and plunder.

But Khartoum denied any responsibility for the latest raid.

“I have not heard anything about this incident. The Sudanese government played no role in this whatsoever,” Sudanese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ali al-Sadig told Reuters in Khartoum, Sudan.

The UNHCR’s Redmond said there were reports of “corpses along roadsides” after the raids. He added testimony so far from victims indicated the assault was led by Janjaweed militia.

“Survivors interviewed by UNHCR said their villages were surrounded by men on horseback and camelback, as well as many motor vehicles, some of which were equipped with heavy weaponry. The assailants began to fire at random in the villages and then began pursuing the fleeing population,” he said.

At least 2,000 people, mostly women and children, who fled the attacks reached the Goz Amir refugee camp near Koukou, some 28 miles (45 kilometers) west of the two villages, according to UNHCR.

“They say many people are still hiding in the bush, fearful their assailants might still be in the area,” Redmond said.

The Janjaweed attackers fled toward the Sudanese border.

Goz Amir camp is already home to more than 19,000 Sudanese refugees from neighboring Darfur.

Sudan has refused to allow the deployment of a strong U.N. force in Darfur to bolster an over-stretched African Union peacekeeping contingent already there.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon recommended in January sending up to 11,000 peacekeeping soldiers and police to Chad and Central African Republic to secure their porous borders with Darfur and protect civilians and refugees.

But Chad has said it only wants a civil protection force of police and gendarmes in the east.