Shipping Agreement Details In Progress
U.S. and Japanese negotiators were completing final details Monday on an agreement to defuse a tense shipping dispute.
Undersecretary of State Stuart Eizenstat and Japanese Ambassador Kunihiko Saito met through the weekend to complete an “agreement in principle,” which both men had announced on Friday to head off the banning of Japanese cargo ships from U.S. ports.
State Department spokesman James Rubin said that the weekend negotiations did not signal problems with the accord, which is designed to eliminate expensive port restrictions that American shippers have complained about.
“We expect a comprehensive agreement to be reached very shortly,” Rubin told reporters. Officials of the Federal Maritime Administration, the small government agency that triggered last week’s crisis by ordering Japanese ships barred from U.S. harbors, said they were waiting to review the final agreement.