Japan and North Korea, in their first high-level talks in two years, stuck to their guns yesterday over long-standing disputes that have prevented them from establishing diplomatic ties, ending the first day at an impasse.
The talks between foreign ministry bureaucrats covered little new ground even though North Korea had shown signs of wanting to improve ties with the West to win badly needed aid and avoid becoming a target of the US-led war on terror.
Japanese delegates told their North Korean counterparts that normalization of diplomatic ties was not possible without first resolving the issue of missing Japanese whom Tokyo alleged were abducted by Pyongyang.
"For Japan, this is an important issue and it must be resolved early," the Japanese delegation was quoted by foreign ministry officials as saying. "We are not able to shelve it or avoid it before normalizing ties."
Tokyo says 11 Japanese citizens were kidnapped by North Korean agents in the 1970s and 1980s to train Pyongyang's spies or to become spies. North Korea denies abducting anyone.
A joint statement after a meeting of Japanese and North Korean Red Cross officials in Pyongyang last week said the North had confirmed the whereabouts of six missing Japanese nationals. But none of them was among the 11 Tokyo alleged were taken by force.
North Korea replied that the government, in cooperation with the North Korean Red Cross, would "make utmost efforts to deal with the issue." They gave no further details.
They also said negotiations should focus on the past, demanding that Japan apologizes and compensates for the sufferings during its harsh colonization of the Korean peninsula between 1910 and 1945.
Japan has in the past refused North Korea's demand for compensation, saying the two nations were not in a state of war.
"We have put on the table the list of our concerns, including the issues of alleged abductions and security," a Japanese delegate said. "We had frank discussions."
The talks followed an unprecedented move the day before, when Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi urged North Korean leader Kim Jong-il to respond "sincerely" to attempts to deal with the disputes.
RSS