[USFK Forums] North Korea confirms talks with Japan this week [AFP]

[C. Y. Lee]

Uploaded by C. Y. Lee on Thursday, February 2, 2006

North Korea confirms talks with Japan this week

Wed Feb 1, 2:32 AM ET

Seoul (AFP) - Stalinist North Korea confirmed it would hold talks with Japan to discuss the normalization of bilateral ties and other bilateral issues in Beijing this week.

The North's official Korean Central News Agency said the talks would open on Saturday, in line with an earlier announcement from Tokyo.

"The talks will discuss pending issues of mutual concern including issues related to Japan's settlement of its past, the security issue and the abduction issue," the agency said.

North Korea has yet to forge diplomatic ties with Japan amid wrangling over compensation demands for Japan's harsh colonial rule of the Korean peninsula from 1910 to 1945.

Bilateral ties have also recently turned sour over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons drive and its admission that it abducted Japanese citizens in the past -- a major stumbling block in normalizing ties between the two countries.

North Korea had declared the abduction issue settled after returning five kidnap victims home following a landmark summit in 2002 between Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and reclusive leader Kim Jong-Il in Pyongyang.

But Tokyo has insisted that more Japanese are still alive. Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso said Saturday that Tokyo would seek information on 34 alleged kidnappings on top of 11 still missing mentioned in past talks and five who have been returned to Japan.

Aso warned that Japan would not agree to any normalization of ties with North Korea before seeing major progress on the abduction issue.

The normalization talks first began in October 2002, a month after the Koizumi-Kim summit. At a previous round of talks in late December, they agreed to set up working groups on contentious issues.



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