2ND LD: Japan, N. Korea agree to work toward resolving bilateral issues

BEIJING, July 19 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING)

Top Japanese and North Korean nuclear negotiators agreed Thursday, in their first meeting since the latest round of the six-party talks on North Korea's denuclearization began Wednesday, to make ''mutual'' efforts to resolve various pending bilateral issues and to move the six-party talks forward.

''There are (unresolved) issues connected to the six-party talks and Japan-North Korea ties but we agreed to work together toward a resolution,'' Kenichiro Sasae, Japan's chief six-party delegate, told reporters after he met bilaterally with North Korean counterpart Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan for about an hour.

Sasae was alluding to issues such as North Korea's past abductions of Japanese nationals, the key stumbling block in the normalization of diplomatic ties between the two countries.

The director general of the Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, who said he met Kim following a request from the Japanese side, described the talks as ''very serious and frank.''

But Sasae declined to disclose other details of the talks after agreeing with the North Korean side not to do so.

In his meeting with Kim, Sasae is believed to have reiterated Japan's policy of not taking part in energy and other aid for North Korea until progress is made on the abduction issue.

Sasae also met bilaterally with Chinese six-party counterpart Wu Dawei to convey Japan's thoughts on a planned chairman's statement being prepared by host China.

Attention is now expected to focus on when Japan and North Korea will resume a meeting of the bilateral working group established under the six-party framework to discuss the abduction and other issues including the normalization of diplomatic ties. The group held an inaugural meeting in Hanoi in March which ended without progress.

Thursday's talks marked the first time the countries have held full-fledged government-level talks since the meeting in March.

Asked if North Korea was positive about holding a meeting of the working group, Sasae said that ''will be known tomorrow'' and that he wants to wait for the outcome of the chairman's statement currently being drafted by China.

In Japan, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stressed his ''iron will'' Thursday to press North Korea to return all Japanese abductees and called for ''dialogue and pressure'' to urge the North to abandon its nuclear programs.

''I will work with an iron will until the day all the abduction victims can be reunited with their parents,'' Abe said in a street speech in Miyakonojo, Miyazaki Prefecture.

''North Korea has at last taken the initial phase (denuclearization) measures. But in the end, we have to make it abandon its nuclear weapons with an attitude of 'dialogue and pressure' together with the international community,'' Abe said.

In Tokyo earlier in the day, top government spokesman Yasuhisa Shiozaki said that Japan is ''always ready'' for bilateral talks with North Korea to discuss a resolution of the abduction issue.

North Korea admitted in 2002 that it had abducted and taken to its territory 13 Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s, saying eight of them had subsequently died. The other five have been repatriated to Japan.

Pyongyang has since said that the abduction issue has been resolved but Japan disputes that and is demanding that North Korea reinvestigate the abductions and return what it believes are surviving abductees.

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