Bush assures Japan’s premier

President Bush assured Japan’s new prime minister, Yasuo Fukuda, on Friday that he would not ignore the abduction of Japanese citizens by North Korea as the United States negotiates with the regime in Pyongyang over its nuclear weapons program.

The president and Fukuda agreed to work together to counter nuclear development in Iran as well as North Korea, as Bush offered a political embrace to the prime minister, who faces unease at home about U.S.-Japanese relations.

The fate of Japanese abducted by North Korea during the 1970s and 1980s is an issue of extreme political sensitivity in Japan. Tokyo believes that 17 abductees may still be alive.

Fears have arisen in Japan that, to win North Korea’s cooperation in stemming nuclear weapons proliferation, the United States may remove it from the list of nations that sponsor terrorism, a step toward improved relations.

The president seemed to go out of his way to note that he and the prime minister discussed the issue during their approximately 70-minute meeting in the Oval Office. He said that “one of the most moving moments of my presidency” was when he met at the White House with the mother of an abducted girl.

Bush said he understood “how important the issue is to the Japanese people, and we will not forget the Japanese abductees, nor their families.”

But he did not address whether North Korea would be removed from the terrorism list.

North Korea has admitted that it kidnapped 13 Japanese to teach its spies about Japanese language and culture. It released five in 2002, and has said the other eight are dead.

Bush said the two leaders had agreed to keep pressure on North Korea to fulfill its promise to abandon its nuclear weapons programs. He also said he and Fukuda had agreed to increase international pressure on Iran if it did not end its efforts to enrich uranium, a key step in developing civilian nuclear power but also in building a nuclear warhead.

The administration has said it would seek a third round of U.N. Security Council sanctions to squeeze Iran to give up what the United States says is a program to develop nuclear weapons. Iran says it is working to produce civilian nuclear power.

Bush and Fukuda took no questions during their statements before sitting down to a lunch of Kobe beef short ribs.

Fukuda, the fourth Japanese prime minister during Bush’s presidency, took office in late September. He has been wrestling with the parliament’s reluctance to resume Japanese refueling operations in the Indian Ocean, which support U.S. Navy vessels deploying to the Persian Gulf region, and demands to keep the abduction issue alive with the United States.

Fukuda reiterated that Bush had promised his support on the abduction issue and “his commitment for unchanged support.” Tokyo has essentially said there can be no lessening of sanctions against North Korea or warmer relations with the regime until progress is made on returning the abductees.

Japan has stopped its refueling work because legislation authorizing it expired Nov. 1, and the government lacks the votes to win renewal. The prime minister said he had told Bush he would seek approval of legislation permitting “early resumption” of the refueling.

Bush, praising the contribution to the coalition effort in Afghanistan, said Japanese vessels had refueled 800 ships from 11 nations. For the U.S., the Japanese role may carry more diplomatic than military significance, because it shows that it has a major Asian partner in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

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james.gerstenzang @latimes.com

Times staff writer Bruce Wallace in Tokyo contributed to this report.