Japanese Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu told a top aide to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev Thursday that to achieve economic reform Moscow must help itself and that plans without action were meaningless.
The aide, Yevgeni Primakov, arrived in Tokyo earlier to brief Kaifu on Gorbachev's plans before the leader of the Soviet Union meets those of the leading industrialized democracies at a Group of Seven (G-7) summit in London later this month.A Foreign Ministry official quoted Kaifu as telling Primakov: "The Soviet Union should take action by itself and plans without action are meaningless."
The official quoted Primakov as saying Gorbachev would go to London to explain his reform plans and would not seek a specific amount of aid. Primakov gave no details of what Gorbachev will say.
"The Soviet Union wants to synchronize its own reform plan and foreign aid. The speed of the reform changes according to size of foreign aid. The purpose of Gorbachev's trip to London is to make the direction of reform irreversible," Primakov said.
Kaifu and the leaders of the United States, Canada, Britain, France, Italy and Germany meet in London July 15, when the issue of support for Gorbachev will be high on the agenda.
Earlier, Primakov told reporters Gorbachev planned to meet individually all seven leaders attending the summit.
Among the seven, Japan has been the most cautious in offering financial aid, citing a survey commissioned by the Houston G-7 summit last year which was published in December.
The survey by four international organisations, including the World Bank, said large-scale aid would be ineffective without wide-ranging economic reform. That remains Japan's position.
A senior Japanese official said Tuesday that the Soviet Union needed to address a long list of economic, political and bilateral concerns before it could expect large-scale aid from Japan and other G-7 nations.