TOKYO, Dec 22: Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said on Wednesday that Japan was aiming to work out with the United States a new framework of their security alliance in the face of new threats.

"It is a matter to be discussed hereafter," he said, commenting on a press report that the two countries would issue a joint statement on their security ties, possibly in February.

Koizumi told reporters the two countries were due to have "in-depth discussions" on ways to maintain a deterrence and reduce a heavy concentration of US troops on the southern Japan island of Okinawa.

Japan plans to hold ministerial talks with the United States in February focusing on a realignment of US forces on its soil, a senior Japanese official said on Tuesday.

The Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported on Wednesday that the projected joint security statement will outline the manner in which the two Pacific allies address new threats such as terrorism as well as issues concerning China-Taiwan tensions and North Korea.

It reformulates a 1996 security statement credited with giving the Japan-US partnership a new role in the Asia-Pacific region in the post-Cold War era, the leading business daily said.

The agreement aims to facilitate the realignment of US forces in Japan by re-establishing common security goals, the daily added. The two sides hope to hammer out the agreement by February when foreign affairs and defence cabinet members from the two sides hope to meet for security-related talks, it said.

Richard Lawless, the US deputy under secretary of defence, held talks here on Monday and Tuesday focusing on a proposed US military "transformation" in Japan. Japan has shown reluctance to accept a US proposal to move from the US state of Washington to Camp Zama outside Tokyo a major US army command which covers the "arch of instability" stretching from the Middle East to East Asia.

The transfer of the US Army 1st Corps command could run counter to the bilateral security treaty which limits the use of land and facilities in Japan by US forces for the purpose of peace and stability in the Far East. -AFP