Abe & Obama set to visit Pearl Harbor
Russia talks downplayed
TOKYO, Dec 5, (Agencies): Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Monday he would visit Hawaii on Dec 26 and 27 for his final summit meeting with outgoing US President Barack Obama, and to remember the victims of Japan’s Pearl Harbor attack 75 years ago.
Abe will be the first incumbent Japanese Prime Minister to visit Pearl Harbor after Tokyo launched a surprise attack on the US naval base in December 1941.
His visit follows a landmark trip to Hiroshima in May by Obama, the first sitting US president to visit the Japanese city devastated by a US nuclear attack in 1945.
“I’ll visit Pearl Harbor with President Obama. This will be a visit to console the souls of the victims,” Abe told reporters.
“I would like to show to the world the resolve that horrors of war should never be repeated.”
The attack on the naval base by Japanese torpedo planes, bombers and fighter planes drew the United States into World War Two when it declared war on Japan, while the US nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki forced Japan to surrender.
Abe hopes for progress: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Monday that he hopes for progress in peace treaty talks with Russia but that the decades-old issue cannot be settled in one meeting.
Abe said he wants to discuss the issue candidly with Russian President Vladimir Putin when he visits Japan on Dec 15-16.
Dispute
Abe has been betting that his close ties with Putin and the lure of Japanese investment in fields from medical technology to energy could ease progress in the dispute over four islands seized by Russia at the end of World War Two when the leaders meet.
The feud over the islands, called the Northern Territories in Japan and the Southern Kuriles in Russia, has kept Tokyo and Moscow from signing a peace treaty formally ending their conflict and strengthening ties in the face of a rising China.
“This is not an issue that can be resolved in just one meeting,” Abe told a meeting of government and ruling party officials.
“I want us two leaders to discuss this frankly and with open minds and make progress in negotiations on a peace treaty,” said Abe, who has met Putin more than a dozen times since his first 2006-07 term in office.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said over the weekend it would be difficult to close the gap in positions over a peace treaty and territorial dispute with Japan.
NZ PM calls it quits: Popular New Zealand Prime Minister John Key announced his shock resignation Monday, saying he was never a career politician and it was the right time to go after eight years in the job.
The former Merrill Lynch currency trader called it “the hardest decision I’ve ever made”, with no plans on what to do next other than spend more time with his family.
“Being leader of both the party and the country has been an incredible experience,” he told a regular weekly news conference.
Career
“But despite the amazing career I have had in politics, I have never seen myself as a career politician.”
Key recently marked his eighth anniversary as prime minister and 10th year as leader of the centreright National Party, which is set to meet next week to elect his successor.
His deputy Bill English, who led the party to its worst result in the 2002 election, is widely seen as favourite to take over and was endorsed by Key, although he did not immediately confirm he wanted the role.
“Certainly, I wouldn’t stand if there wasn’t strong caucus support for me standing,” he said, adding that since the 2002 flop he had received “a masterclass every day from John Key about how to do politics”.
As discussion about Key’s decision to walk away swirled around social media, the down-to-earth politician — once voted the leader most New Zealanders would love to have a beer with — insisted he was “not the kind of guy that has to hang on to power for power’s sake”.
Opinion polls had consistently pointed to him becoming the first political leader in New Zealand history to win four consecutive elections when the country votes next year, but he said records were not a consideration. “If you’re staying for the record of the time you’re staying for the wrong reason,” he said.
“It’s been an incredible experience and it’s been a real privilege and I’m going to die happy — I hope that’s a long time in the future — but I’m going to feel really proud of what we’ve done,” he said.
Key came into politics relatively late, entering parliament in 2002 and assuming leadership of the National Party four years later.
By 2008 he had ended nine years of Labour Party rule, ousting then-prime minister Helen Clark.
He won plaudits for his leadership during a string of crises in his first term, including a devastating earthquake in Christchurch in February 2011 which claimed 185 lives.
The 55-year-old also steadied the economy after the global financial crisis without resorting to hard-line spending cuts, instead taking a steady, pragmatic approach that saw the budget return to surplus in the 2015-16 financial year for the first time since 2008.
When he heard the news, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull sent him a brief text message: “Say it ain’t so bro”, telling reporters in Melbourne he considered his close friend “one of the most outstanding national leaders in the world today”.
New Zealand opposition Labour Party leader Andrew Little acknowledged Key’s popularity but said he understood why he was walking away.
“Politics requires much sacrifice. We may all be politicians, but not all our lives are politics,” Little tweeted.
Former prime minister Clark, now the head of the UN Development Programme, praised Key for working “tirelessly to promote New Zealand and its interests”.