Japan will discuss the fate of Japanese citizens abducted to North Korea at nuclear disarmament talks this week but should not endanger the weapons negotiations by pushing the abduction issue too far, a Japanese official said Sunday.
"I think Japan will bring up this issue," Taku Yamasaki, former vice president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, said on TV Asahi's < The fate of several Japanese kidnapped to North Korea decades ago has been a sticking point as the countries prepare for six-nation talks in Beijing aimed at eliminating North Korea's nuclear weapons program. Pyongyang -- brought to the negotiating table through months of delicate diplomacy -- has objected to discussing anything outside the nuclear agenda and says the abduction issue has already been resolved. North Korea, which kidnapped the Japanese decades ago to use as language teachers for spies, said 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 afterward that Japan still intends to pursue the issue and "hear what North Korea thinks." Ahead of the nuclear talks, which resume tomorrow after a 13-month hiatus, Tokyo reportedly dispatched a diplomat to revive negotiations over the kidnappings. China has offered to provide a venue for bilateral talks between Japan and North Korea during the six-nation nuclear talks, Kyodo News agency reported. North Korea has admitted kidnapping 13 Japanese in the 1970s and 80s. It allowed five of them to return to Japan, saying the other eight died. Japan is demanding proof of the deaths, as well as information on other cases of missing Japanese.
PRECARIOUS RELATIONS: Commentators in Saudi Arabia accuse the UAE of growing too bold, backing forces at odds with Saudi interests in various conflicts A Saudi Arabian media campaign targeting the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has deepened the Gulf’s worst row in years, stoking fears of a damaging fall-out in the financial heart of the Middle East. Fiery accusations of rights abuses and betrayal have circulated for weeks in state-run and social media after a brief conflict in Yemen, where Saudi airstrikes quelled an offensive by UAE-backed separatists. The United Arab Emirates is “investing in chaos and supporting secessionists” from Libya to Yemen and the Horn of Africa, Saudi Arabia’s al-Ekhbariya TV charged in a report this week. Such invective has been unheard of
‘TERRORIST ATTACK’: The convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri resulted in the ‘martyrdom of five of our armed forces,’ the Presidential Leadership Council said A blast targeting the convoy of a Saudi Arabian-backed armed group killed five in Yemen’s southern city of Aden and injured the commander of the government-allied unit, officials said on Wednesday. “The treacherous terrorist attack targeting the convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri, commander of the Second Giants Brigade, resulted in the martyrdom of five of our armed forces heroes and the injury of three others,” Yemen’s Saudi Arabia-backed Presidential Leadership Council said in a statement published by Yemeni news agency Saba. A security source told reporters that a car bomb on the side of the road in the Ja’awla area in
US President Donald Trump on Saturday warned Canada that if it concludes a trade deal with China, he would impose a 100 percent tariff on all goods coming over the border. Relations between the US and its northern neighbor have been rocky since Trump returned to the White House a year ago, with spats over trade and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney decrying a “rupture” in the US-led global order. During a visit to Beijing earlier this month, Carney hailed a “new strategic partnership” with China that resulted in a “preliminary, but landmark trade agreement” to reduce tariffs — but
SCAM CLAMPDOWN: About 130 South Korean scam suspects have been sent home since October last year, and 60 more are still waiting for repatriation Dozens of South Koreans allegedly involved in online scams in Cambodia were yesterday returned to South Korea to face investigations in what was the largest group repatriation of Korean criminal suspects from abroad. The 73 South Korean suspects allegedly scammed fellow Koreans out of 48.6 billion won (US$33 million), South Korea said. Upon arrival in South Korea’s Incheon International Airport aboard a chartered plane, the suspects — 65 men and eight women — were sent to police stations. Local TV footage showed the suspects, in handcuffs and wearing masks, being escorted by police officers and boarding buses. They were among about 260 South
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