WASHINGTON : Murayama Summit

Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama will meet with President Clinton on Wednesday in a summit that is expected to touch lightly on trade disputes and focus instead on cooperation to achieve shared goals.

Mutual efforts to deal with global problems of the environment, population, poverty and AIDS, as well as security in the Asia-Pacific region, will be on the agenda for the Washington summit, Murayama said in Tokyo. A key topic will be Japanese financial assistance in carrying out a Washington-Pyongyang agreement aimed at ending North Korea’s suspected nuclear weapons program.

The two leaders had brief meetings last year at multinational gatherings, a financial summit in Rome and the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation gathering in Indonesia, but this is their first full-scale bilateral summit.