Tokyo - Japan's Prime Minister, Mr Junichiro Koizumi, said yesterday his government would not decide until late October whether to ratify the Kyoto climate treaty without the participation of the US. Koizumi also predicted that the talks starting in Bonn today to salvage the treaty, including by persuading Japan and other doubters to back it without the US, would fail.
"We have yet to reach a conclusion as we are trying to seek ways to co-operate between the United States, Europe and Japan," he said in a debate on the Asahi TV network. "Under this stance, it will take until late October for our honest views to come out," he said.