Japan will insist on discussing the abduction of its citizens when North Korean nuclear disarmament talks open next week in Beijing, a government spokesman said yesterday amid reports Tokyo had dispatched a diplomat to rekindle the negotiations despite objections from Pyongyang.
The fate of several Japanese kidnapped to North Korea decades ago has been a sticking point as the two countries prepare for six-nation talks in Beijing aimed at eliminating North Korea's nuclear weapons program.
North Korea, which has repeatedly rejected Tokyo's call to discuss the abductions on the sidelines of the nuclear talks, said on Wednesday it would not deal with Japan at all during the next round and blamed Tokyo for "trying to change the direction and atmosphere of the six-party talks."
Yu Kameoka, a spokesman for Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, said Japan will still press the issue.
"It may be Japan has been saying things North Korea is not so happy to hear, but we will bring up the kidnapping issue," Kameoka said. "We want to express our opinions first and hear what North Korea thinks."
A Japanese Foreign Ministry official, Akitaka Saiki, was dispatched to Beijing on Wednesday seeking China's help in brokering new talks with North Korea about the abductions, Kyodo News agency reported.
Saiki, deputy director-general of the ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs bureau, met his Chinese counterpart Cui Tiankai (
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