TOKYO, March 2: Cuban President Fidel Castro offered here on Sunday to play a role in settling the nuclear crisis over North Korea despite describing his links with the hardline Asian communist state as limited.

Castro, who arrived here Saturday on the last leg of a four-nation Asian swing, made the remarks when he met with Tamisuke Watanuki, the speaker of Japan’s House of Representa-tives, government officials said.

The veteran head of the Cuban revolution also met Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Sunday but details of their meeting were not immediately available. “I have no close contact with the present leadership,” Castro said about North Korea’s supreme leader Kim Jong-Il whose father, the late president Kim Il-Sung, had a personal relationship with the 76-year-old Cuban.

“I would be glad to do anything which could be of any help, like conveying a message,” Castro was quoted as telling the lower house speaker, according to the officials.

He added that the situation in North Korea has become “dangerous” since George W. Bush became US president in early 1991. “Both China and Russia do not want war.”

Watanuki called on Cuba to help resolve the problems of North Korea’s suspected nuclear arms development and its abduction of Japanese nationals, the officials said.—AFP