Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, following a meeting with US President George W. Bush, headed on Friday for the Middle East to raise Japan's profile in the region and ensure a stable energy supply.
Japan has long felt it has a special role to play in the Middle East because it lacks much of the political baggage of the US, allowing for warmer ties with Arab nations and a role as a mediator between Israel and the Palestinians.
With Japan dependent on the region for nearly all its crude oil, Tokyo has decided to boost its presence in the Middle East as competition for resources heats up.
The first stop on his five-nation trip is the world's top oil producer, Saudi Arabia, which has also recently taken a larger role in Middle East peace-making efforts.
Officials said before Abe's trip that Tokyo aims to broaden its regional involvement to include non-oil investment and human development out of concern that overdependence on the oil industry among Gulf nations could lead to instability.
Abe is accompanied on his Middle East trip by an economic mission of some 175 businessmen from top Japanese firms.
Trade officials said this week that Japan aims to conclude a free trade agreement with six Middle Eastern oil producing nations by next year, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Analysts say Japan's push in the region is being driven at least in part by a desire to improve an image tarnished in the eyes of some Arab nations after Tokyo sent troops to Iraq.
Japan withdrew its roughly 600 ground troops from Iraq last year following a noncombat mission that lasted more than two years.
But around 200 air force personnel remain in Kuwait, where they airlift supplies to the US military in Iraq.
The mission was recently extended for two more years.
Abe was set to visit an air base in Kuwait to thank the troops. He also was scheduled to stop in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Egypt before returning to Japan on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, at their meeting on Friday, Bush and Abe warned North Korea on Friday that global patience with its nuclear promises is "not unlimited."
The two allies warned of possible new sanctions after Pyongyang missed an April 14 deadline to shut down a key atomic reactor.
Bush warned that the US, Japan and their partners China, Russia and South Korea "are patient" with North Korea, "but our patience is not unlimited" and stressed "we have the capability of more sanctions."
Abe, speaking through an interpreter, said: "Should the North Koreans fail to keep their promise, we will step up our pressures on North Korea. And on that point, again, I believe we see eye to eye."
After roughly two hours of talks, which yielded a joint statement on energy security and climate change, the leaders headed into a cheeseburger lunch as Bush renewed pressure on Japan to fully lift its curbs on US beef.
"The Japanese people will be better off when they eat American beef. It's good beef, it's healthy beef; as a matter of fact, I'm going to feed the prime minister and his delegation a good hamburger today for lunch," Bush said.
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