Miyazawa Urges 4 Powers to Broker Korean Harmony : Diplomacy: Japan’s prime minister tells a Washington audience that tensions on the divided peninsula are Asia’s biggest security problem.

Japanese Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa on Thursday called for close cooperation among the four major powers in Asia--Russia, Japan, China and the United States--to bring about a reconciliation between South and North Korea.

Miyazawa’s suggestion, made in a speech at the National Press Club, echoes one made several months ago by Secretary of State James A. Baker III. It is an idea that has raised fears among some Koreans that the major powers might some day try to impose a solution or deal for the future of the Korean Peninsula that Koreans would not like.

The Japanese prime minister called tensions between North and South Korea the “most pressing” security problem in Asia. He promised that Japan will not normalize its ties with North Korea until the government of North Korean President Kim Il Sung dispels the “suspicion” that it is developing nuclear weapons.

In addition to giving his speech, Miyazawa met Thursday with Vice President Dan Quayle and with Defense Secretary Dick Cheney before leaving Washington.

Most of Miyazawa’s address was devoted to problems in Asia, where Japan now seeks to play a leadership role.

He urged the United States to maintain its troops in Asia and the Pacific and not to retreat from the region. “The world needs American leadership. An isolationist America would be everyone’s nightmare,” the Japanese prime minister said.

Miyazawa pleaded for greater Western understanding of China, despite its human rights problems. “We need to appreciate that for a country like China, with more than one billion people and a low national income, the expansion of its national economy is indispensable for its domestic stability,” he declared. “Economic reforms should pave the way for political reforms.”

He was much less warm in his comments about Russia. Miyazawa emphasized once again that ties between Japan and Russia cannot improve until the two countries settle their territorial dispute over the four islands in the Kuril chain that were seized by Soviet troops at the end of World War II.