The Japanese foreign minister is expected to call on Japan's G-8 partners at their annual meeting this week in Washington to come up with measures to support Arab nations' efforts to democratize the Middle East, Kyodo News reported Tuesday.

"The kind of reform initiative that people in the Middle East want to promote will serve as the principal basis" for the talks, Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi was quoted as saying.

The G-8 nations should come up with measures to support effortsby Arab nations by examining the outcome of an Arab League summit to be held from May 22, Kyodo quoted a senior Foreign Ministry official as saying.

The foreign ministers of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States will discuss as a majoragenda item the so-called Great Middle East Initiative proposed bythe United States to support reform in the Middle East.

Kawaguchi is also expected to ask for cooperation to bring about a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula, Kyodo said.

Source: Xinhua