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Pyongyang admits abductions of Japanese

A Japanese woman reads a newspaper yesterday about Japanese citizens who were kidnapped to North Korea. PHOTO: REUTERS

North Korea yesterday apologized to Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi for kidnapping Japanese citizens, promised to extend a moratorium on missile tests and, leaving the door open to talks with the US, said it would honor commitments on its nuclear program.

The concessions, won by Koizumi at a high-risk summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, cleared the way for a resumption of talks on normalizing ties between Tokyo and Pyongyang, soured for years by bitter history and suspicion.

"It is regretful and I want to frankly apologize," a Japanese government official quoted Kim as saying about the kidnappings, which took place in the 1970s and 1980s.

Adding to the rare act of contrition, Kim said he had punished those involved.

Koizumi, for his part, apologized for Japan's harsh 35-year colonial rule of the Korean peninsula that ended in 1945.

Japan had made progress on the issue of the abductees a condition for reopening normalization talks, stalled for nearly two years by a raft of other issues including Pyongyang's demand for reparations for Tokyo's colonial rule.

North Korea had previously denied abducting anyone.

"The two leaders confirmed that it is beneficial for both sides to settle the unfortunate past, resolve concerns and establish fruitful political, economic and cultural relations," the sides said in a joint statement after the talks.

Koizumi's one-day trip had been characterized by some analysts as a make-or-break move for the Japanese leader, who needed a diplomatic coup to cement his domestic support.

But the implications go far beyond bilateral ties and domestic politics.

The talks between the two leaders were being watched around the world for clues as to whether the reclusive communist state, branded by US President George W. Bush part of an "axis of evil," was emerging from its Cold War cocoon.

Washington had wanted progress on security issues before it too offered renewed talks with North Korea, and Pyongyang went some way towards meeting its demands with an extension of its moratorium on missile tests beyond the deadline of next year.

Under a 1994 agreement, North Korea pledged to freeze a suspected nuclear weapons program in exchange for two light-water reactors.

US officials have accused Pyong-yang of violating the agreement by refusing to permit experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in to conduct inspections of its nuclear facilities to verify it does not have stockpiles of weapons-grade plutonium.

"Kim said his door is always open for dialogue with the United States and he asked me to convey that message," Koizumi told a news conference after the talks.

Eleven people are officially on Tokyo's list of abductees, but intelligence sources have said nearly 40 Japanese may have been kidnapped, apparently to help train North Korean spies.

A Japanese official told reporters that only four out of the 11 people on the list were still alive.

North Korea's official KCNA news agency said Pyongyang would let those still alive return home if they wanted.

Pyongyang said one female, Megumi Yokota, who was 13 when she disappeared in 1977 on her way home from school, had died.

"I am saddened. I cannot believe her death," her weeping father, Shigeru Yokota, told a news conference in Tokyo.

Kayoko Arimoto, mother of Keiko, who went missing in 1983 when she was 23 and living in London, also learned her daughter was dead.

"When I heard the news, I was so saddened, I could not even cry," she said.

Japan has always refused North Korea's demand for reparations for its colonial rule and wartime oppression, saying Japan and Korea were not in a state of war.

The joint statement said Japan and North Korea had agreed on talks on economic aid and that details would be discussed during normalization talks.

Analysts say North Korea, hit hard by several years of natural disasters and chronic food and energy shortages, needs to improve ties with the West to secure desperately needed aid.

Tokyo gave South Korea US$500 million when they normalized ties in 1965. Analysts have said Tokyo could provide up to US$10 billion to the economically crippled North.

South Korean President Kim Dae-jung had been hoping Koizumi's trip would support his efforts to keep North-South ties on track.

Japan said it would send a senior official to Seoul today to brief the South Korean leader on the summit.

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