Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri held talks on Tuesday in Japan on the developing situations in Afghanistan and North Korea and the sensitive issue of an enlarged UN Security Council. Kasuri held talks with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on the situation in Afghanistan and Japan's plans to resume yen loans to Islamabad among other issues, an official said. In talks later with his Japanese counterpart Nobutaka Machimura, Kasuri discussed the upcoming parliamentary polls in Afghanistan, where Japan is a major donor, amid concern over when a date would be set for the vote.

"Kasuri appreciated the assistance that Japan has given for the stability and for economic development and reconstruction in Afghanistan," the official said of the talks.

The two sides also held talks on North Korea, which is locked in a stand-off with much of the world over its ambitions to build nuclear weapons.

Kasuri said Pakistan "fully appreciates the concerns on North Korea", the official said.

Kasuri and Machimura also discussed proposals to enlarge the UN Security Council.

The Pakistani embassy issued a statement stressing that the issue did not come up in the talks with Koizumi.

In discussions earlier with Japan's main opposition leader Katsuya Okada, Kasuri "highlighted the importance of evolving and objective criteria" in the Security Council and "building a consensus on the issue of Security Council expansion," the statement said.

Kasuri in his meetings also extended an invitation to Koizumi to visit Pakistan and expressed appreciation for Japan's past economic assistance.

Kyodo News reported Saturday that Koizumi was considering visiting India and Pakistan along with Luxembourg and the Netherlands from late April to early May.

Japan has agreed in principle to resume yen loans to Pakistan, which it cut off in 1998 after New Delhi and Islamabad carried out shock nuclear tests.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2005