(Update) Aso Asks U.S. To Take Up Japan-N. Korea Issues in Pyongyang Talks

Tokyo, June 21 (Jiji Press)–Foreign Minister Taro Aso, in telephone talks with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Thursday, asked the United States to take up Japan’s pending issues with North Korea during a visit to the country by Christopher Hill, the top U.S. negotiator at six-party talks on denuclearizing North Korea.

Their telephone talks came shortly after it was revealed that Hill, U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, would go to Pyongyang Thursday for a two-day visit.

Hill arrived in Pyongyang Thursday afternoon, becoming the first senior U.S. State Department official to visit North Korea since James Kelly, then assistant secretary of state for East Asian affairs, went there in 2002.

Hill’s short-notice visit came after North Korea late last week invited a delegation of the International Atomic Energy Agency as an apparent step toward implementing an agreement reached at a six- party meeting in February that called for the shutdown of North Korean nuclear facilities.

Hill’s talks with North Korean officials are likely to touch on issues such as the procedures for suspending the operations of the nuclear facilities and scheduling of the next meeting of the six parties–North and South Korea, the United States, Japan, China and Russia.

Aso told Rice that Japan wants Hill to tell North Korea that Tokyo is ready to hold negotiations with Pyongyang to normalize bilateral ties based on the 2002 Pyongyang Declaration, according to sources with access to their talks.

Japan also wants Hill to convey Tokyo’s demand that Pyongyang make serious efforts to resolve the issue of Japanese nationals abducted by North Korean agents, Aso said.

Rice assured Aso that Hill will take up Japan’s relations with North Korea in his talks with North Korean officials, adding that he will brief Japan on the visit to North Korea on his way back to the United States, the sources said.END

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