Japan, N. Korea to hold Red Cross talks April 29-30

Asian Political News, April 22, 2002

BEIJING, April 17 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING WITH ADDITIONAL INFO)

Japan and North Korea will hold Red Cross talks April 29-30 in Beijing on the issue of missing Japanese nationals, sources familiar with Japan-North Korea relations said Wednesday.

The two-day talks follow a strained hiatus since the Japanese and North Korean Red Cross societies last held talks in March 2000. After their initial meeting in September 1997, the two countries held four more rounds of talks before the suspension in 2000.

Along with Red Cross officials, Foreign Ministry officials of the two countries will also attend the Beijing meeting, the sources said.

Japan says that at least 11 Japanese nationals were abducted and taken to North Korea in eight cases between 1977 and 1983.

North Korea denies the allegations, but has expressed readiness to cooperate with Japan in searching for the Japanese as ''missing people.''

North Korea's Red Cross Society agreed in March to resume talks with the Japanese Red Cross Society on the fate of the Japanese at an appropriate time.

Kim Sok Chol, deputy secretary general of the North Korean Red Cross, confirmed in an English-language letter that the group was prepared to resume the talks. The letter was faxed to the Japanese Red Cross office.

North Korea's long-standing antagonism toward Japan, for its colonization of the Korean Peninsula and its close military ties with the United States, was piqued by the December sinking of what Tokyo suspects was a North Korean spy ship.

The ship sank in China's exclusive economic zone following a shoot-out with Japan Coast Guard patrol ships.

Though unofficial contacts between the Red Cross societies originally scheduled the talks for April 24 and 25, they were postponed as April 25 marks the 70th anniversary of the establishment of North Korea's military forces.