After three years in the forefront of U.S.-Japanese relations, Walter Mondale said Friday he was stepping down as America's ambassador to Japan and returning to private law practice.
Mondale joined other officials from the Clinton administration who have announced plans to step down following the president's re-election Tuesday. Five Cabinet members are leaving.Mondale said that with new governments in both the United States and Japan, it was a good time for him to call it quits. He said he intends to return to his native Minnesota.
"I think relations here are in good shape," he said in an interview with a Minnesota broadcaster. "I miss my grandchildren." Mondale turns 69 in January.
Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto, who was re-elected by Parliament on Thursday, worked closely with Mondale since taking office earlier this year, and said he would be sorry to see him go.
Hashimoto told the ambassador during a meeting Friday that the Japanese people will "feel sad" at the news of his leaving, national broadcaster NHK reported.
Mondale represented Minnesota in the U.S. Senate for 12 years until being elected vice president in 1976. Despite his crushing defeat to Ronald Reagan in the 1984 presidential race, Mondale was welcomed in Japan as a major figure in the Democratic Party.
Mondale has been praised for his deft handling of tough issues during his three-year tenure, including several trade spats and protests in Okinawa over the heavy U.S. military presence there.
He helped settle the standoff in Okinawa, where outrage had broken out over the rape of a Japanese schoolgirl by three U.S. servicemen, by helping arrange the return of land used by a U.S. military base.
Washington and Tokyo defused several trade disputes under his watch, but other major disagreements remain unresolved, including fights over access to Japan's markets for film, insurance and semiconductors.