Nakasone Sees Way to Better Moscow Ties

Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone said Thursday that last week’s Geneva summit offered Japan “a chance for a breakthrough” in its relations with the Soviet Union.

“I think is it appropriate to add impetus to economic and cultural exchanges (with the Soviet Union),” Nakasone said in a luncheon speech at the Japan National Press Club.

He also said that Japan will need more time to decide whether to participate in research and development of President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, despite reports that both Britain and West Germany are nearing a decision to participate.

The prime minister refused to spell out how long Japanese “investigations” of the “Star Wars” program for a space-based missile defense system will continue before he might offer stronger support for it.

Short of Full Support

Nakasone, who so far has offered only an expression of “understanding” for SDI, again stopped short of offering forthright support, which Japanese diplomats have said is not implied by merely “understanding” the “Star Wars” effort.

Instead, he emphasized what he called improved prospects for better relations with Moscow created by a mood of relaxation achieved by Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev in their Geneva talks. He said the summit “made the world feel at ease and gave people everywhere hope and happiness.”

Referring to a scheduled visit to Tokyo on Jan. 15 by Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze, Nakasone said that Japan and the Soviet Union, as “big power neighbors,” should develop a relationship in which “we ring each other’s doorbells and are welcomed into each other’s living rooms.” Whether the two countries will extend to each other “invitations into the living room” will depend “on the talks we will have,” he added.

“But it is important that we are at least ringing each other’s doorbells,” he said.

Nakasone said Japan embraced “no illusions” about its relations with the Soviet Union and would continue to insist that Moscow return to Japan’s sovereignty four northern islands the Soviets seized after World War II.

“I think the Soviet attitude about the territorial issue is still severe. But to improve and deepen friendly relations between Japan and the Soviet Union, the territorial issue cannot be avoided,” he said.

Although the Kremlin promised in 1956 to return two of the four islands when a peace treaty formally ending World War II between the Soviet Union and Japan is completed, in recent years Soviet leaders have insisted that no territorial issue exists.

On trade frictions, Nakasone said that Japan must reform the “structure” of its society and its economy, which he said was “export-oriented and export-minded.” No longer can Japan “maintain the patterns and ways of doing things of the past,” he declared.

“We Japanese must embrace doubts about our ability to maintain trade surpluses of $40 billion and $50 billion a year. In mahjong, if one person keeps winning, he will eventually no longer be invited to play. Japan faces the same problem,” he said.