[USFK Forums] Japan, N Korea in 'honest' talks

[C. Y. Lee]

[Uploaded by C. Y. Lee, Friday, November 4, 2005] BBC News received this morning follows:
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Last Updated: BBC News, Thursday, 3 November 2005, 12:22 GMT

Japan, N Korea in 'honest' talks

Japan is under pressure to impose sanctions on the North Talks between Japan and North Korea aimed at normalising their troubled relations are being held in an "honest" atmosphere, a Japanese official said.
The main issue at the talks in Beijing is the fate of Japanese people abducted by North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s.

Pyongyang admitted in 2002 that it had kidnapped 13 Japanese to help train its spies. Five have since returned home and the North says the rest have died.

But Japan believes they and others could still be alive in the North.

The two sides have not held substantive talks on the abduction issue since last December 2004, when Japan accused North Korea of lying.

"The heads of both delegations said they discussed [issues] very honestly," a Japanese official told the French news agency AFP on Thursday.

Slow progress

But he warned against expecting "very concrete results" from this round of talks.

"There's a very, very long way to go for the resolution of, for example, for the Japanese side, the abduction issue or the nuclear issue," he said. "It's too complicated to reach a resolution in just one or two days of talks."

The North Korean delegation leader, Song Il-ho, vice director of the foreign ministry's Asian affairs department, told reporters that the atmosphere in Thursday morning's session had been "good".

Tokyo has threatened sanctions against the North unless the issue is resolved.

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told reporters last week that Japan would continue to press North Korea over its missing citizens.

[PHOTO] JAPAN'S MISSING

Snatched in the '70s and '80s
Used as cultural trainers for N Korean spies
Five allowed home in 2002
Five children now freed from N Korea
Eight said to be dead, others missing


Heartbreak over Japan's missing

"We've sought a sincere response on the abduction and the nuclear issues, but we haven't seen that yet. So Japan will continue to urge North Korea to deal sincerely with Japan's requests," he said.


Japan has offered to normalise relations with North Korea and provide economic aid if it is given the information it wants.

"We will tell them again clearly this time that this remains our basic policy," said the head of the Japanese delegation in the North, Akitaka Saiki.

Earlier this week the families of the missing renewed their calls on the Japanese government to take action against North Korea if it the talks were not successful.

"We call for an immediate economic sanction if there is no progress," they said in a statement.

Japan has already suspended food aid, but still allows limited trade with North Korea.

Cutting all ties could provoke the secretive state, at a time when the international community is trying to coax it towards a deal on giving up its nuclear programme.

A fifth round of multi-party nuclear talks are due to resume in Beijing next Wednesday, China has announced.

The North warned this week that the US was threatening the talks' success by imposing sanctions against North Korean companies.