Japan-N. Korea Red Cross talks set for April 29-30

0 Comments | Asian Political News, April 22, 2002

TOKYO, April 18 Kyodo

(EDS: ADDING KOIZUMI'S COMMENTS)

Japan and North Korea said Thursday they will hold bilateral Red Cross talks April 29-30 in Beijing to discuss Tokyo's allegations that Pyongyang abducted Japanese nationals, among other issues.

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told reporters at his official residence, ''I want the North to take sincere measures over the abduction problem and the normalization of bilateral diplomatic ties.''

During the two-day talks, the Japanese and North Korean Red Cross societies will discuss humanitarian issues involving the two countries, Japan's top government spokesman Yasuo Fukuda said.

These include the possibility of searching for 11 Japanese nationals Tokyo alleges North Korea abducted from 1977 to 1983, Fukuda said. Pyongyang denies the allegations.

The unresolved issue has suspended the bilateral normalization talks since October 2000.

A plan enabling Japanese nationals living in North Korea as spouses of North Koreans to visit their homeland will also be taken up in the talks, Fukuda said.

North Korea also announced the plan for the bilateral talks Thursday.

Hiroshi Higashiura, chief of the International Relations Department of the Japanese Red Cross Society, will head the Japanese delegation, Fukuda said. But he gave no details about the North Korean delegation.

At a separate news conference, Senior Vice Foreign Minister Shigeo Uetake said Foreign Ministry officials will accompany Higashiura. But he did not disclose the ranks of the officials.

The plan was set after Pyongyang announced its intent March 22 to hold the talks ''on the issue of mutual concern at a convenient time.''

Earlier Thursday, lawmakers renewed their resolve to settle the abduction allegations in a hearing at the House of Councillors Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, which relatives of some of the allegedly abducted Japanese nationals attended.

Speaking at the hearing, Akihiro Arimoto, 73, and the father of one of the 11, demanded that the government deal with the allegations more quickly as relatives of the 11 are getting old.

Tokyo believes Keiko Arimoto was abducted and brought to North Korea from Europe in 1983. Her 76-year-old mother, Kayoko, said at the committee session, ''I want to see my child's face while I'm still fit.''

Shigeru Yokota, 69, the father of Megumi Yokota, who was allegedly abducted in 1977, made a similar request.

''It's already been 24 years and five months since the incident occurred and five years since the Diet began to take up the issue. But we have yet to hear about her whereabouts or even whether she is dead or alive,'' Yokota said.

Meanwhile, Hitoshi Tanaka, director general of the Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, told the committee, ''If you are asking whether we can go ahead (with normalization talks) without resolving the abduction issue, the answer is no.''

''In terms of the negotiations, we cannot move things forward unless we can see a prospect or direction for resolving these kinds of issues,'' he added.

Tanaka's remark deviates slightly from the Foreign Ministry's general approach to resolving the issue of the alleged abductions, under which it would be addressed as part of talks to normalize the bilateral diplomatic relationship.

On the U.S. designation of North Korea as a country that supports terrorism, the bureau chief said Japan has clearly told the United States it wants Washington to make no change to its policy at a time when Tokyo is trying to resolve the issue of the alleged abductions.

North Korea was placed on the U.S. list of ''state sponsors of terrorism'' in 1988 for its suspected role in the 1987 midair bombing of a Korean Air passenger jet that killed all 115 people on board.

Tanaka said North Korea has been engaged in no terrorism since the incident and that it is viewed as a supporter of terrorism because it is harboring Japanese leftists who participated in the 1970 hijacking of a Japan Airlines plane.