Japan hopes Red Cross talks with N. Korea realized

0 Comments | Asian Political News, April 15, 2002

TOKYO, April 10 Kyodo

The Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau chief expressed hope Wednesday that planned talks between the Japanese and North Korean Red Cross societies will take place by the end of this month.

''The abduction issue concerns the lives of Japanese people, so we want to resolve it as soon as possible. As a starter, I hope the Red Cross societies' meeting will be realized by the end of April,'' Hitoshi Tanaka told a House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee session.

The Red Cross societies of the two countries are trying to work out a schedule for the talks, to be resumed for the first time since March 2000. The two societies have held talks four times since their first meeting in September 1997.

The groups are to take up humanitarian issues of concern to the two countries, including the fate of nearly a dozen Japanese nationals whom Japan claims were abducted to the North between 1977 and 1983.

Tanaka indicated at the lower house committee session that he asked senior officials from South Korea and the United States in trilateral talks to ensure there is coordination on the issue of the alleged abductions when they negotiate with North Korea.

In the trilateral talks held Tuesday in Tokyo, Tanaka said he told South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Tae Sik and James Kelly, U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, that it is important for Pyongyang to take a ''constructive approach'' on the abduction issue.

South Korean special envoy Lim Dong Won, who visited Pyongyang last week, said that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il told him his government is ready to resume Red Cross talks with Japan on the issue of the missing Japanese nationals, but he rejected Japan's claims that the Japanese were abducted.

Tokyo believes at least 11 Japanese nationals were abducted to North Korea in eight cases. The issue has been a major stumbling block to normalizing diplomatic relations between Japan and North Korea.