LEAD: Hatoyama meets U.S., Russian ambassadors, talks with other leaders

TOKYO, Sept. 3 Kyodo -
(EDS: ADDING INFO IN LAST GRAF)
Democratic Party of Japan President Yukio Hatoyama spent a busy day Thursday
meeting envoys from other countries and receiving calls from foreign leaders,
with about two weeks to go until he launches Japan's new government.
Hatoyama, prime minister in waiting following the DPJ's election victory, held
talks with ambassadors from the United States and Russia -- John Roos and
Mikhail Bely -- in the afternoon, after speaking on the phone with U.S.
President Barack Obama earlier in the day.
The 62-year-old DPJ chief also said he received phone calls from British Prime
Minister Gordon Brown, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, and
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, who all congratulated him on the DPJ's
sweeping victory in the House of Representatives election on Sunday.
Hatoyama and Roos, who welcomed the DPJ's victory, agreed to strengthen the
Japan-U.S. alliance, but the two apparently refrained from discussing in detail
potentially controversial issues such as the DPJ's plan to review the
relocation of U.S. troops stationed in Japan.
''We spent a lot of time talking about how to enhance and further deepen the
relationship across a broad range of issues,'' Roos told reporters.
''President Obama is very much looking forward to working with the incoming
prime minister and the new government,'' he said. ''We have a lot of work to
do, but we are going to do it together.''
The meeting between Hatoyama and Roos, who are both alumni of Stanford
University, proceeded in a friendly atmosphere, according to Hatoyama.
Bely, meanwhile, told Hatoyama that the DPJ's big win must reflect the Japanese
people's trust in the party and expectations for the country's development.
Bely said the biggest objective of Thursday's meeting was for him to convey
congratulations from Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister
Vladimir Putin to Hatoyama.
Touchy bilateral issues including the sovereignty row over four islands off
Hokkaido were not discussed, according to Hatoyama.
But Hatoyama, who is also head of a Japan-Russian association, said he told the
Russian ambassador that the two countries must build relations of trust in
order to resolve pending issues.
In their brief telephone talks with Hatoyama, Brown, Zapatero and Ban indicated
their interest in meeting with him on the sidelines of the U.N. General
Assembly in New York or the Group of 20 financial summit in Pittsburgh later
this month.
The leaders of Britain and Spain also agreed with Hatoyama to beef up their
respective bilateral relations, according to a DPJ official who briefed
reporters on the telephone conversations.
Hatoyama said the U.N. secretary general commended the DPJ for setting an
ambitious goal of greenhouse gas emissions reductions in its campaign manifesto
and that he responded by saying he would like to take a leading role in the
international community as well.
==Kyodo