Tsutomu Ishiguri, director of the U.N. Regional Center for Peace and Disarmament in Asia and the Pacific, asked for financial support to keep the conference running in the future.

''The conference is important for dialogue in the Asia-Pacific region and it has achieved a successful record in the past 14 years,'' Ishiguri said at a press conference.

The disarmament conference has been held in Japan every year since 1989, with local governments hosting the event picking up most of the expenses, which average about 50 million yen.

However, this year's conference only managed to raise about 13 million yen. As a result, the number of participants had to be reduced from the usual 80 to 37, and the conference was cut short by one day.

Conference discussions focused this time on creating a global framework against terrorism and the management of weapons of mass destruction in response to the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the United States.

In past years, the theme of the conference has centered on nuclear arms reduction.

The 37 participants included journalists, government officials and members of nongovernmental organizations. They came from 12 countries, including Japan and the U.S. and nuclear rivals India and Pakistan.