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Japan, North Korea set for talks on improving ties

Posted on: Monday, 31 October 2005, 21:45 CST

By Teruaki Ueno

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan and North Korea kick off their first full-fledged talks in more than three years on Thursday seeking to resolve long-standing disputes that have blocked the Asian neighbours from establishing diplomatic ties.

The talks in Beijing between foreign ministry bureaucrats from the two countries come after North Korea agreed in principle in September to dismantle its nuclear arms programs in exchange for aid and better ties with Washington and Tokyo.

The Beijing meetings would be the first comprehensive talks between Japan and North Korea since October 2002 when the two sides met in Kuala Lumpur, officials and analysts said.

A failure to improve ties could hamper the six-party process on North Korea's nuclear arms programs because Tokyo is reluctant to give large-scale aid to Pyongyang in return for abandoning its nuclear ambitions.

The next round of six-party talks among North and South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the United States is likely to take place next week.

Tokyo has offered full-scale financial aid to impoverished North Korea, but only after diplomatic ties are forged.

"As long as negotiations between Japan and North Korea are stalled, it is difficult for the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear issues to move forward," said Hajime Izumi, a Korea expert at the University of Shizuoka near Tokyo.

"If North Korea wants to receive everything it wants, it will have to improve ties with Japan and the United States."

Japanese officials said Tokyo would press for progress on the emotional issue of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea decades ago and would try to win a firm pledge from Pyongyang to scrap its nuclear arms and missile programs.

NO MAJOR AID BEFORE NORMALISATION

For its part, North Korea is expected to press for the settlement of issues stemming from Japan's harsh 35-year colonial rule of the Korean peninsula until 1945.

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi apologized for Tokyo's actions at the 2002 summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, but he rejected Pyongyang's demand for reparations.

Instead, the two leaders agreed to discuss Japanese aid for Pyongyang later. Japan gave South Korea $500 million when the two countries normalised ties in 1965, and some analysts have said Tokyo could provide up to $10 billion to the economically crippled North.

Japanese officials said Tokyo would use the Beijing talks to press Pyongyang to resolve the thorny issue of Japanese citizens it kidnapped in the 1970s and 1980s to train spies.

The feud over the kidnappings, the main obstacle to normalising ties, intensified after DNA tests found that bones handed over to Japanese diplomats a year ago were not those of Japanese abductees.

North Korea has admitted abducting 13 people, five of whom have returned to Japan with their children. Pyongyang says the other eight are dead.

But Japan has been pressing for further information on the eight and another three who Tokyo says were also kidnapped.

North Korea says the matter is closed, but during a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the last round of six-party talks in September it told Japan it was considering demands on the issue.

Former Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura, who was replaced in Monday's cabinet reshuffle, said last week that Tokyo would use "dialogue and pressure" to persuade North Korea to resolve the abduction issue.

"The abduction issue is a major theme for Japan, and Japan cannot handle possible economic assistance and energy aid for North Korea unless there is progress over the issue," Machimura told South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon last week.

Relatives of the abductees and their political supporters want Japan to harden its stance and impose economic sanctions on North Korea to force the reclusive communist state to shed more light on the abductees.

Pyongyang has warned that any imposition of sanctions by Japan would be tantamount to a declaration of war.

Source: REUTERS

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