DJ meets with Japanese Culture and Business Leaders in Tokyo

President Kim Dae-jung and first lady Lee Hee-ho Friday arrived in Tokyo, for the Sept. 23-24 summit talks with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori.
With the summit talks beginning Saturday, the president used the day to court investment for South Korea, and allay Japan's long-standing distrust of North Korea. He met with Japanese cultural figures, Japanese Foreign Minister Kono Yohei, financiers and businessmen throughout the day at his hotel.
"Based on the advancement in cultural exchanges made between our two countries, let us now proceed to a three-way cultural cooperation including North Korea," the president said, as he met with some 100 cultural leaders and popular entertainment figures.
The president said that enhanced cooperation in the cultural sector between Japan and North Korea, will contribute to improving their bilateral relations.
On complete opening of the South Korea's cultural market to Japanese products, he said that "the (opening) of the broadcast sector, I believe, will happen simultaneously with the 2002 World Cup."
The president described North Korean leader Kim Jong-il as "a leader capable of intelligent judgement, flexibility and decisionmaking," and added that it would be effective to "talk directly with the North Korean leaders as well as using the normal diplomatic channels."
"I will do all I can to contribute to improving relations between Japan-North Korea and the U.S.-North Korea," the president said.
Kim actively courted 150 leading business figures at a dinner.
"This is the best time for Japanese companies to invest in the South," the president said. Kim explained the further deregulation for foreign firms operating in Korea, plans for a parts and materials industrial park at Taebul and Chinsa in the southern parts of the country and improvement in labor-management relations. In attendance at the dinner were prominent business figures such as Chairman Okuda of Nikkeiren, a business lobbying group, and Miyahara Genji, chairman of the Japan External Trade Organization.
President Kim begins his two-day summit with Prime Minister Mori at the hot springs resort of Atami Saturday.
Meanwhile, Japanese right-wing groups staged demonstrations around Kim's hotel, the New Otani. Protesters carried placards that read "Get out of Takeshima (the Tokto islets)" "Stop North Korean food aid," and "No suffrage for ethnic Koreans in local elections."

by Kim Jin-kook