Extracts. Ethiopia-China Ties to Be Further Strengthened: Ethiopian Deputy FM Ethiopia-China relations have been going well and will continue to be strengthened in the new century, said Ethiopian deputy Foreign Minister Tekeda Alemu at a press conference Monday. Alemu said that Ethiopia and China have supported each other all along. The two countries have persistently acted in accordance with the norms of international law, he added. Ethiopia's position is "wholly based on the 'one China' principle," he said. "We don't even have to be asked to support China. There is absolutely no doubt that is the position Ethiopia will take. It will always be the case," he stressed. The deputy foreign minister also talked about the general status of economic cooperation between the two countries, hoping that reciprocal cooperation would be further expanded in the new century. Alemu is here at the invitation of the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations. **** Chinese, Mongolian Defense Ministers Hold Talks Chinese Defense Minister Chi Haotian said Monday afternoon that strengthening the good-neighborly relations between China and Mongolia conforms to the fundamental interests of the people of the two countries, and is conducive to regional peace, stability and development. Chi told visiting Mongolian Defense Minister Jugderdemidiin Gurragchaa that Mongolia is a close neighbor of China, and the Chinese government has all along attached importance to relations with Mongolia. He said that China is ready to make unremitting efforts to promote Sino-Mongolian relations in the spirit of the Sino- Mongolian friendship and cooperation treaty in 1994 and the Sino- Mongolian Joint Statement in 1998. Chi said that China and Mongolia have conducted sound cooperation in the defense field, and the exchange of visits between military leaders of the two countries is frequent. He expressed gratitude to the support Mongolia has given to China on the issues of Tibet and Taiwan. Gurragchaa said that Mongolia-China relations have developed smoothly, guided by the consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries, and the cooperation between the two countries in various levels and fields have expanded continuously. Mongolia is willing to develop the state-to-state and military- to-military relations with China on the basis of equality, mutual benefit and mutual trust. Gurragchaa arrived here Monday morning at the invitation of Chi, who hosted a ceremony to welcome his Mongolian counterpart before the talks. **** DPRK Slams Japan's Refusal to Delegation Entry into Japan The Democratic People's Republic of Korean (DPRK) on Monday criticized the Japanese government for rejecting the entry of a DPRK delegation into Japan to attend an international meeting, according to the Korean Central News Agency. A spokesman for the DPRK Foreign Ministry told the agency that the meeting to be held in Tokyo will discuss how to demand compensations for "women for the (Japanese) army" and other victims in World War II. He said that Japan has undisguisedly revealed its hostility toward the DPRK before the international community by only rejecting the entry of the DPRK delegation. **** Iran Reiterates US Lifting Sanctions as Condition for Better Ties Iran on Monday reiterated that the lifting of United States sanctions on Iran is a precondition for thawing the icy ties between the two countries, the official IRNA news agency reported. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi made the remark at a press conference in response to the U.S. administration's lobbying for a two-year extension of a law that punishes foreign firms having a large investment in Iran's oil industry. "We announce for the umpteenth time that in the status quo, any restoration of ties between the two countries depends on fundamental removal of barriers, including the U.S. sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran," Asefi said. Iran and the U.S. severed diplomatic relations in 1980 after the seizure, by some Muslim students, of the U.S. embassy in Tehran following the 1979 Iran's Islamic Revolution. "If the U.S. government is intent to take a positive stride in its interaction with Iran, it should meet the legitimate demands without any preconditions," the spokesman said. "Not only Iran slams the unilateral sanctions which contravene all international laws and conventions, but also all the countries in the world have practically opposed the act," he added. Accusing Iran of sponsoring terrorism, seeking to sabotage Arab- Israeli peace efforts and committing human rights abuses, the U.S. has imposed economic sanctions against Iran since 1980. Moreover, the U.S. adopted an act which punishes foreign firms having a large energy investment in Iran and Libya five years ago to make the sanctions more effective. As the act is going to expire, a powerful pro-Israeli lobby is pressing for another full five-year extension of the controversial legislation. But the U.S. administration is in favor of a two-year extension. **** Israel, Palestinians Fail to Reach Truce Agreement Top Israeli and Palestinian security officials failed to agree on a U.S. ceasefire plan after debating for three hours at a security meeting under the auspice of US officials at Jerusalem's King David Hotel Monday night. Israel Radio reports quoted Palestinian sources as saying that the meeting, which was aiming to strengthen the current fragile ceasefire between the two sides after eight months of violence, had been "very tense" and officials from both sides shouted at each other. According to the radio, the Palestinians rejected to carry out security coordinating measures before Israel lifts a closure on Palestinian cities and towns in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. "Such an implementation is impossible and unacceptable," the Palestinian sources said. Meanwhile, an Israeli top official told Israel Radio that the Israeli side will not lift the closure before the Palestinians take substantial measures to stop the violence. The meeting, scheduled to take place in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Sunday, was postponed at the last minute after Tenet saw significant differences between the two sides over the plan. During Monday's meeting, both sides submitted their response to the plan presented by U.S. Central Intelligence Agency chief George Tenet, in their three-way meeting on Friday. After the meeting, Palestinian officials had gone back to Ramallah to brief Arafat on the result of the meeting, while Tenet also reported the meeting to U.S. senior officials in Washington. Participating in the meeting are Israeli General Security Service (Shin Bet) head Avi Dichter, senior Israel Defense Forces officers on the Israeli side, and heads of preventive security forces in the West Bank and Gaza Strip Jibril Rajoub and Mohammed Dahlan, and intelligence chief General Amin Hindi on the Palestinian side, according to the report. According to Israeli media reports, the U.S. ceasefire plan urges both sides to resume their security coordination. It demands that the Palestinians arrest militant activists, such as members of Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and Islamic Jihad (holy war), and stop the violence, in exchange for Israel's withdrawal to the positions they held before the outbreak of the violence late last September, and refraining from launching initiative attacks against Palestinian targets. The major difference between the two sides for carrying out the ceasefire reportedly was that the Palestinians want the security coordination to be part of and not separate from a political package, while Israel insists that nothing should be discussed before the violence stops. The violence had lasted for more than eight months, during which over 570 had been killed, most of them Palestinians. **** Iraq Warns Turkey Against Backing "Smart Sanctions" Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz Monday warned Turkey against backing a U.N. Security Council draft resolution on "smart sanctions" which Washington and London seek to impose on Iraq. During a meeting with visiting Turkish Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Faruk Logoglu, Aziz, who is also Iraq's foreign minister, warned that if Turkey voted in favor of the draft resolution, Iraq would stop dealing with it, the official Iraqi News Agency reported. The two ministers also discussed bilateral relations between the two countries. For his part, Logoglu stressed Turkey's desire to develop economic ties with Iraq, the agency said. Political observers in Baghdad believed that the Turkish official's visit is important at this stage as Turkey seeks to keep its relations with the U.S., and at the same time, to maintain its trade with Iraq. Turkey suffered 35 billion U.S. dollars of losses from suspension of trade with Iraq due to the 10-year-plus UN sanctions on Baghdad imposed on Iraq following its invasion of Kuwait in 1990. However, analysts put Turkey's direct and indirect losses at over 85 billion dollars, with the southeastern parts of Turkey being the worst affected areas by the sanctions on Iraq. Iraq threatens to suspend its oil exports to and reconsiders economic and political ties with neighboring countries if they back the draft resolution. Iraq halted oil exports on June 4 to protest against a United Nations Security Council's resolution to extend the oil-for-food deal for only 30 days instead of a regular six-month term.�� The Security Council's decision was aimed to allow more time for the 15-member body to discuss the American-British plan on "smart sanctions" against Iraq. The "smart sanctions" are aimed at easing curbs on exporting civilian goods to Iraq while tightening control on materials that can be used for military purposes. **** Majority of Americans Favor Good Ties With China, Survey Shows A majority of Americans agree that China is not an "adversary" to the United States and it is important for the two countries to maintain good relations despite fierce bickering in the past months, according to a nation-wide poll released Monday in Washington. A telephone survey of 1,468 people, conducted May 15-28 by the Pew Research Center, shows that public alarm about China has not increased in spite of the recent rise of tension in bilateral relations over the EP-3 spy plane incident and boosted U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. The survey also points to the fact that a majority of Americans are opposed to any U.S. commitment to defending Taiwan, despite President Bush's recent remarks that the United States should do " whatever it took" to help defense the island if China were to use force against it. The proportion against U.S. military involvement in Taiwan at this time, as the poll shows, stands at 64 percent, 11 percentage points up from the polling in March 2000, while the proportion supporting U.S. commitment to defending Taiwan goes down to 26 percent from the 31 percent in March 2000. More than half in the survey cast doubt about U.S. policies aimed at making a difference in China, and instead 59 percent of the people consider that maintaining good relations with the world 's most populous nation is more important than promoting democracy and human rights there. According to the poll, more than half of both Republicans (51 percent) and Democrats (53 percent) say that China is a "serious problem but not a adversary," and only one out of five in the survey think of China as an "adversary." The survey shows that 48 percent of the people regard relations between the United States and China are "staying about the same," while 40 percent see that relations as "getting worse." Even though quite a few people recognize relations between the two countries have deteriorated, the proportion who see China's emergence as a world power as a threat to the United States has not climbed up over the past two years. "More Americans identify many other threats, both traditional and new, as major threats, including Saddam Hussein's continued rule in Iraq, the spread of weapons of mass destruction, new missile threats, international terrorism, global environmental problems, and the rapid spread of infectious diseases," said Morton H. Halperin, a senior research fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations. "Responses to other questions reinforce the view that the president is likely to meet with significant skepticism from the public if he adopts the advice of some of his advisers and paints China as the primary enemy of the United States," Halperin said. _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. 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