AFP, June 4, 2008 (excerpts) – Iran’s president rejected a Japanese request Tuesday to comply with U.N. calls to cease uranium enrichment, Japanese officials said on the sidelines of a U.N. summit.
Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda met with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during the food price summit in Rome and urged him to comply with the U.N. resolutions, Fukuda’s spokesman said.
Japan is hosting next month’s G-8 summit, where the dangers of nuclear proliferation is on the agenda, and the country believes that “if Iran continues to be isolated, Iran loses the most,” said spokesman Kazuo Kodama. He said the Iranian leader asked for the meeting.
Kodama later told The Associated Press that Ahmadinejad rejected the Japanese request to comply with U.N. resolutions.
“No, Iran will not do so. It can’t do so. Rather, nuclear states should undertake disarmament,” Kodama, the spokesman, quoted the Iranian as saying.