Number: [TN: blacked out]
Primary: North American Affairs Bureau Director-General
Sent: United Nations, September 28, 1993, [TN: time blacked out]
Received: MOFA, September28, 1993, [TN: time blacked out]
To: The Foreign Minister
From: Ambassador Hatano
Japan-United States Summit Meeting (Separate Telegram 4)
No. 5517 Secret Top Urgent
Outgoing Cable No. 5513 Separate Telegram 4: Russia
(Prime Minister) I would like to say a word about Russia. At the recent Japan-Russia summit meeting, we decided that President Yeltsin would visit Japan for three days from October 12. Of course, with Russia’s fluid domestic situation, there could be changes from this point onward. The Japanese people would like to resolve the territorial issue and normalize relations between Japan and Russia. Also, in regard to Russia’s reform efforts, our idea is to positively support them. Opening a new chapter through the accumulation to this point of negotiations on the territorial issue, we would like to construct a new era for Japan and Russia.
(Foreign Minister) Thank you, Mr. President, for your remarks in the recent meeting with Prime Minister Chernomyrdin.
(Clinton) Thank you. At this point, I strongly believe that it was right to support Yeltsin. Whoever replaces him, [TN: part of statement blacked out]. I believe, if we look at the map and at history, that Russia cannot change into a country with a sound democracy and market without the support not only of the United States and Europe but of Japan as well. I believe that Russia’s realization as a country with a sound economy and a strong democracy would be in the interest of all the world’s countries.
Passed to all [Japanese] diplomatic missions in the United States (except for Agana and Detroit), Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Canada, and Russia. (End)
Hosokawa says that he has invited Yeltsin to visit Japan in October 1993 and hopes to resolve the Russo-Japanese territorial dispute. Clinton hopes for positive political and economic developments inside Russia.
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Fintan Hoey analyzes the high level diplomacy between US President Clinton and Japanese Prime Ministers Miyazawa and and Hosokawa in 1993 and 1994, two years of transition in the US-Japan alliance.