Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Sunday his government would not decide until late October whether to ratify the Kyoto climate treaty without the participation of the United States.
Koizumi also predicted that the talks starting in Bonn on Monday to salvage the global-warming treaty, including by persuading Japan and other doubters to back it without the United States, would fail.
"We have yet to reach a conclusion as we are trying to seek ways to cooperate between the United States, Europe and Japan," he said in a debate on the Asahi TV network.
"Under this stance, it will take until late October for our honest views to come out," he said. "My feeling is that no agreement will be reached in the next week's (conference) to be convened in Bonn."
The Japanese leader said Tokyo's final response would be unveiled at the October round of climate talks in Morocco, but also reiterated his country's pledge to bring the treaty into effect in 2002 – TOKYO (AFP)
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