Shevardnadze Visits Tokyo to Pave Way for Gorbachev

Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze arrived in Tokyo on Tuesday and said President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s visit here next spring will represent an “extremely important turning point” in Soviet-Japanese relations.

In interviews on board his plane from Vladivostok and on television here, Shevardnadze said the main purpose of his coming to Japan was to pave the way for Gorbachev. He said Moscow wants to broaden and invigorate ties between the two nations.

No top Soviet leader has ever visited Japan, and the countries have still not signed a treaty formally ending World War II hostilities between them. The Soviet foreign minister last visited Tokyo in December, 1988.

After greeting Foreign Minister Taro Nakayama at Haneda Airport, Shevardnadze said: “There is no mistake that Gorbachev’s visit will mark an extremely important turning point in Soviet-Japan relations.”

He said Moscow wants to expand its cooperation with Japan in all areas, including international issues. “Now is the time for us to act more vigorously,” he said.

Later, in an interview on the Japanese network NHK, Shevardnadze refused to answer a question as to whether Gorbachev would bring with him any new proposal on a territorial dispute over four islands the Soviet Union seized from Japan after World War II. Shevardnadze did not mention that issue in his remarks at the airport.

Japan has made return of the islands a prerequisite for any peace treaty or financial aid to the Soviet Union.

Neither would Shevardnadze talk about whether the Soviet Union will establish diplomatic relations with South Korea. Gorbachev and South Korean President Roh Tae Woo met in San Francisco in June, and Roh said after that meeting that they had agreed to open formal relations.

Before flying to Tokyo, Shevardnadze told South Korean officials at a conference in Vladivostok that he would meet Choi Ho Joong, the South Korean foreign minister, for the first time later this month at the United Nations in New York.

Shevardnadze has scheduled three sessions with Nakayama, today and Thursday. He is also to meet with Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu, have an audience with Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko and speak to a news conference before he departs Friday.

Kaifu, who won recognition of Japan’s territorial claim at the Houston economic summit meeting in July, said the Soviet Union “must not put aside the northern territories issue” in seeking to improve relations with Japan. He made the statement at a protest rally of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party on Monday, the 45th anniversary of Soviet occupation of the Kuril Islands--Sept. 3, 1945, 19 days after World War II ended.