There Is No Turning Back; Koizumi says he's done more to reform Japan than any other leader.(Interview)

Byline: Christian Caryl and Hideko Takayama

Junichiro Koizumi spoke with NEWSWEEK's Christian Caryl and Hideko Takayama in a special reception room in the Kantei, the prime minister's official residence in Tokyo. Excerpts: On George W. Bush as a leader:

President Bush has been showing leadership in fighting a new kind of war. I have great respect for him for doing that. The decision to embark on a war must be a most agonizing one. It is about sending young men and women to a faraway battlefield with the possibility that they will have to shed their blood. But, of course, there is no way he could give in to terrorism as leader of the world community. So he's been engaged in continuous efforts to establish a democratic government in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

That said, I think there is a need for the U.S. to engage in greater cooperation with the international community. Japan would never wish to become an irresponsible country that would advocate international cooperation while doing nothing itself. Japan would not--unlike the United States or Britain--engage in combat operations to wipe out insurgents in Iraq, nor would we participate in security activities on the ground. So we intend to do our utmost in terms of assisting Iraq's reconstruction--and Afghanistan's--in ways that would be different from what the U.S. is doing.

On normalizing ties with North Korea:

Let me say that there is no haste to normalize relations with North Korea. The only thing I'm saying is that the earlier, the better. If you ask me, "Would normalization be possible in, say, one year or two years?" I think what makes sense is for us to strive toward that end.

On his stated plan to step down in 2006: