Abe Pledges to Beef Up Ties With Mongolia

TOKYO—Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wrapped up a weekend trip to Mongolia on Sunday, with the two countries pledging greater cooperation in energy and security as Japan seeks closer ties in the region to offset China.

The trip to Ulaanbaatar was the first by a Japanese prime minister in seven years. It offered Mr. Abe the chance to push for Japanese involvement in the long-stalled Tavan Tolgoi coal project, believed to be one of the largest untapped coal reserves in the world, and to discuss concerns about North Korea and China. "I would like to open a new era in Japan-Mongolia relations," Mr. Abe said in a meeting Saturday with Mongolian Prime Minister Norov Altankhuyag, noting that the two nations already have in place a "strategic partnership."

He said he wants to speed up talks on a free-trade agreement, with the third round of discussions to begin later this week. Japan has been seen as a laggard against rivals such as South Korea in forming such economic ties. Such an agreement would also represent a first for Mongolia.

"We would like to expand the collaboration between our two countries," Mr. Altankhuyag said later at a joint news conference.

The trip is also the latest in a regional push by Mr. Abe and members of his cabinet. Since taking office in December, the prime minister has been to Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand as he seeks greater cooperation to reduce Japan's economic reliance on China, currently its biggest trading partner.

Mr. Abe has also met with U.S. President Barack Obama and is expected to visit Russia in May. But notable in its absence has been any announcement of a trip to Beijing, which has taken Japan to task over the past six months over its nationalization of a set of disputed islands in the East China Sea.

Japanese officials said the Mongolian trip shouldn't be viewed as "anti-Chinese" but have stressed the ideas of security and democracy. Mongolia, which is hemmed in by Russia and China with no access to the sea, has said it views Japan as a "third neighbor." The talks also included discussions about an increasingly bellicose North Korea, which has responded to increasing pressure from the U.S. and others with increasingly strong language, announcing on Saturday that it was at a "state of war" with South Korea. "We shouldn't allow any provocative act by North Korea," Mr. Abe said.

Mr. Abe said at the news conference that his administration "attaches importance to relations with nations that share the values of freedom, democracy, the rule of law and basic human rights," a comment seen as a reference to China.

Japan, which has worried about its lack of domestic energy supplies since the 1970s Middle East oil shocks, is also on the hunt for stable energy sources. That drive has become more urgent since the March 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident has shut down almost all of the country's nuclear power plants. "At a time when most nuclear power plants are out of operation, the government needs to think strategically about how to secure energy resources," Japan's chief government spokesman Yoshihide Suga told reporters on Friday.

Mongolia is rich in minerals, with uranium and rare earth deposits in addition to its coal reserves. But talks have dragged on over the Tavan Tolgoi project with a number of global consortiums bidding for rights to take part.

"We don't have abundant resources in Japan but have technological strengths, so our cooperation is very beneficial," Mr. Abe said at the joint news conference.—Toko Sekiguchi and Alex Frangos in Hong Kong contributed to this article.

Write to William Sposato at william.sposato@dowjones.com

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