Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi will visit North Korea this weekend in a bid to bring back eight relatives of kidnapped Japanese citizens and break a stalemate over Pyongyang's nuclear program.
The one-day trip today will be Koizumi's second meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il following their historic summit in September 2002 which resulted in the return of five Japanese kidnapped in the 1970s and 1980s.
On Thursday, the prime minister said in his weekly e-mail magazine column he intended to make progress on both the abduction issue and stalled six-nation discussions on Pyongyang's nuclear arms ambitions.
"Talking face-to-face once more with Chairman Kim is the only way that we can expect to see any advance in the situation as it currently stands," Koizumi wrote.
The row over North Korea's nuclear program has been deadlocked since October 2002, when Washington said the Stalinist state had broken a 1994 nuclear freeze by launching a secret weapons drive.
The eight relatives are seven children of three couples and a former US soldier, listed as a deserter, who is married to a Japanese abductee brought back to Japan with two other kidnapped couples in October 2002.
"We must find a way for the family members to return to Japan without any further delay," Koizumi said in the e-mail magazine.
Efforts to normalize relations between Tokyo and Pyongyang stalled following a backlash from the Japanese public to North Korea's admission at the 2002 summit that it kidnapped 13 Japanese during the Cold War era, eight of whom it said had died.
In return for a breakthrough, Koizumi is reportedly ready to offer some 250,000 tonnes of rice as food aid to the impoverished state and to promise to refrain from imposing economic sanctions.
The conservative Sankei Shimbun said Wednesday Japan was also prepared to give Pyongyang US$10 million worth of medical supplies through an international organisation "if there is progress over the abduction issue."
The five former abductees who were repatriated in 2002 came to Tokyo yesterday in anticipation that their loved ones might actually be allowed to return home with Koizumi.
"I strongly believe that the eight family members of the five will come to Japan tomorrow with Prime Minister Koizumi," one of the five, Kaoru Hasuike, 46, said at a televised press conference.
"All I do is believe and pray," said Hitomi Soga, 45, whose American husband, Charles Robert Jenkins, and two daughters are still here.
Her situation is particularly complicated because Jenkins, 64, is listed as having deserted from the US Army in 1965 and Tokyo is worried Washington could demand his handover for prosecution.
Tokyo also wants Pyongyang to account for other Japanese it believes were abducted whose whereabouts remain unknown.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
EYE ON STRAIT: The US spending bill ‘doubles security cooperation funding for Taiwan,’ while also seeking to counter the influence of China US President Joe Biden on Saturday signed into law a US$1.2 trillion spending package that includes US$300 million in foreign military financing to Taiwan, as well as funding for Taipei-Washington cooperative projects. The US Congress early on Saturday overwhelmingly passed the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act 2024 to avoid a partial shutdown and fund the government through September for a fiscal year that began six months ago. Under the package, the Defense Appropriations Act would provide a US$27 billion increase from the previous fiscal year to fund “critical national defense efforts, including countering the PRC [People’s Republic of China],” according to a summary
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)