Varying degrees of interest in abduction issue at 6-way talks: Sasae

Japan Policy & Politics, Jan 1, 2007

TOKYO, Dec. 26 Kyodo

Participants in the six-party talks for denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula last week showed varying degrees of interest in the abduction of foreign nationals by North Korean agents, the chief negotiator of the Japanese delegation to the talks said Tuesday.

Kenichiro Sasae, director general of the Japanese Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, made the remark at the Cabinet Office while briefing the Japanese abductees' families, including Shigeru Yokota, 74, and his wife Sakie, 70, on the talks held from Dec. 18 through 22 in Beijing, the families said.

Sasae also said Japan will decide its next move on the abduction issue after seeing the outcome of the U.S.-North Korea talks on financial sanctions against Pyongyang scheduled in New York in January, according to Yokota.

Some relatives of the abductees called such course of action too leisurely and suggested the six parties hold talks once every month, he said.

The six parties are the United States, China, Russia, Japan, North Korea and South Korea. Japan has said it will not agree to provide economic assistance to North Korea until the abduction issue is resolved even if the nuclear talks make progress.

Yokota said, ''The government is doing its best. I hope it maintains the current stance and eventually creates circumstances conducive to coercing North Korea to address (negotiations).''

The Yokotas' daughter Megumi was abducted by North Korean agents in 1977 at age 13.

Teruaki Masumoto, 51, who heads the Association of the Families of Victims Kidnapped by North Korea, and Kyoko Nakayama, the prime minister's special adviser on the abduction issue, attended Tuesday's briefing session.

The abduction of Japanese nationals has been one of the major sticking points in the normalization of ties between Japan and North Korea.

Pyongyang admitted to abducting 13 Japanese nationals in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and let five of them return to Japan in 2002. It claims the others have died but Japan describes the explanation as untrustworthy.

The Japanese government recently added Kyoko Matsumoto, a woman who disappeared from Tottori Prefecture in 1977 when she was 29, to the list of abductees, bringing the total number of certified abductees to 17.