* No specifics discussed in Obama congratulatory call
* Hatoyama promised cooperation on economy, climate
* DPJ "Victory thanks to President Obama" (Adds senior U.S. official paragraphs 14-19)
By Yoko Nishikawa
TOKYO, Sept 3 (Reuters) - Japan's next leader, Yukio Hatoyama, told U.S. President Barack Obama in a telephone call that close relations with the United States would remain a fundamental part of Japanese policy.
"I told him that we think the U.S.-Japan alliance is the foundation (of Japanese diplomacy) and that I would like to build U.S.-Japan relations with eyes on the future," Hatoyama told reporters on Thursday after a telephone conversation with Obama.
"I told him that we will make efforts to improve each other's economy through cooperating closely," Hatoyama said.
Specific issues, such as the future of U.S. military bases in Japan, were not discussed in the call, he said.
"I said that President Obama has been exercising leadership in issues such as climate change, the abolition of nuclear weapons, nuclear nonproliferation, and disarmament. I told him that our Democratic Party shares the same thinking and it is a party that wants to take a stronger leadership in climate change, disarmament and the abolition of nuclear weapons."
Hatoyama, whose decade-old Democrat Party of Japan (DPJ) beat the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) by a landslide in Sunday's general election, will be voted in as premier on Sept. 16 and should form his cabinet soon after.
His party said during the election campaign that it wanted to chart a course more independent of the United States.
U.S. analysts had seen potential U.S.-Japan friction under a DPJ government.
The U.S.-educated Hatoyama raised eyebrows in Washington with a recent essay in which he attacked the "unrestrained market fundamentalism" of U.S.-led globalisation. He sought to play down those comments on Monday, saying he was not anti-American.
The White House said Obama had called Hatoyama to congratulate him on his election victory, telling him he wanted to work together on the global economic recovery, the fight against climate change, North Korean denuclearization and battling militants in Afghanistan.
Before the election, the DPJ said it would shift Japan's pro-West policy orientation closer to Asia, re-examine plans to strengthen the U.S.-Japan security alliance, and reconsider cooperation in Afghanistan and other areas.
Few analysts expected the DPJ to alter the U.S.-Japan alliance fundamentally. But Japan experts say the Obama administration will need to listen carefully to Hatoyama's government, many of whose foreign policy ideas were shaped as opposition to former President George W. Bush's administration.
"President Obama and Mr. Hatoyama stressed the importance of a strong U.S.-Japan alliance and their desire to build an even more effective partnership," the White House said.
The top U.S. diplomat for Asia, Kurt Campbell, said Washington expected alliance continuity and continued Japanese global activism on climate change and fighting diseases.
"Patience, commitment and solidarity" would be the U.S. watchwords in working with the incoming government, he said.
Campbell, assistant secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, said Washington saw no contradiction between Hatoyama's party's call for more independence from Washington in foreign policy and a healthy alliance.
"For the alliance to maintain is relevance and its influence over the first part of the century, a degree of independence, of confidence, is absolutely essential on the part of Japan," he told a think tank in Washington.
"The United States supports that," added Campbell.
Hatoyama praised Obama after their phone chat.
"I told him that the Democratic Party's victory is thanks to President Obama, and that Japan has seen its first change in the government through the democratic process. That change required courage, and U.S. citizens and President Obama across the ocean gave the Japanese people that courage."
Hatoyama will head to the United States soon after forming his cabinet to make his diplomatic debut at a United Nations General Assembly meeting and a G20 summit in Pittsburgh. He said he told Obama he would like to meet him in person then. (Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick and Paul Eckert in Washington; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Eric Walsh)