Bush, Hawaii on Mori's itinerary

Will he or won't he? Mori is yet to reveal whether he will fight to retain office

In this story: Mounting pressure North Korea on agenda RELATED STORIES, SITES

TOKYO, Japan -- Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori will go straight from a summit next week with U.S. President George W. Bush to Hawaii, the site of a collision between a U.S. submarine and a Japanese training trawler that has soured bilateral ties.

A court of inquiry, which loosely resembles a civilian trial, is sitting in Honolulu to determine what actions, if any, should be taken against Commander Scott Waddle of the USS Greeneville, which surfaced suddenly, smashed into and sank the trawler carrying high school students on February 9.

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Nine people, including four 17-year-old students, were lost at sea in the accident.

Mori would visit Hawaii on his way home from a summit next Monday in Washington with Bush, Kyodo news agency quoted a senior Japanese government official as saying.

Mori's decision to continue a game of golf for two hours after hearing of the accident is regarded as a crucial factor in a further dive in his popularity that forced him at the weekend to announce an early election for president of his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).

The lame-duck prime minister confirmed on Tuesday at an LDP convention that he would bring forward the presidential election from September, a move that paves the way for him to resign.

But the hugely unpopular premier left financial markets and Japanese voters in the dark over when he would go by failing to set a date for the race or to state clearly that he would not run.

Mounting pressure

CNN correspondent Rebecca MacKinnon says that while Mori has resisted mounting pressure to resign, party insiders said new party elections would result in a new party leader who would become prime minister.

A member of Mori's own Cabinet, Labor Minister Chikara Sakaguchi, said the the end of Mori's time in office is "coming fairly rapidly."

Mori is due to leave on Sunday for Washington and to meet Bush on Monday. He will return to Japan on Wednesday, Kyodo said.

The trawler accident is expected to figure high on the agenda of the Japan-U.S. summit, Kyodo said.

North Korea on agenda

Mori will also take the opportunity to raise the issues of North Korea and China, Kyodo said.

The Japanese prime minister will propose holding a meeting of experts from Japan, the United States and South Korea to coordinate the policy of the three countries toward the isolated Stalinist North, Kyodo quoted government sources as saying.

Japan sees the need for the three to discuss their North Korea policies, especially after the recent visit to Washington by South Korean President Kim Dae-jung revealed differences in their stances toward Pyongyang.

In the U.S.-South Korea summit, Bush struck a markedly cautious stance toward Kim's "sunshine" strategy of engagement with North Korea.

Mori plans to tell Bush that although Japan does not oppose partial changes to Washington's North Korea policy, it believes efforts should be made to ensure current frameworks do not collapse and trigger nuclear development and missile tests by Pyongyang, Kyodo said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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