Excerpt from report by Russian news agency ITAR-TASS

Tashkent, 29 August: Tashkent does not rule out the possibility of Tokyo's involvement in the development of the country's energy resources, including its uranium deposits. This was said in a joint statement adopted today as a result of a meeting between Uzbek President Islom Karimov and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.

"We see good prospects for supplying raw uranium for nuclear power plants in Japan," Karimov told the press.

"Moreover, we welcome the involvement of Japanese capital in developing oil and gas deposits in our country."

Tokyo also does not hide its interest in Central Asia resources, especially, energy.

The principal aim of Koizumi's four-day visit to the region, which started on Monday [28 August], is to increasing Tokyo's political influence in Central Asia and get a wider access to its energy resources. The Japanese premier already held intensive talks in Kazakhstan on Monday.

Since the early 1990's, Tokyo supplied considerable economic aid to the five former Soviet Union republics of Central Asia, reaching to about 2.5bn dollars by the end of the 2004 financial year.

Speaking on results of the talks, Junichiro Koizumi confirmed that Tokyo intended to promote its policy in the region more actively.

" Islom Karimov and I discussed openly the issues of reforming the UN, the problems of North Korea and the situation in Iraq," he said.

"Our positions on all the issues are extremely close, which lays a good foundation for expanding our cooperation further."

[Passage omitted: a note on student exchange signed between Uzbekistan and Japan; the Japanese premier will visit Samarqand on 30 August]