Talks between Japan and North Korea on normalizing ties ended after just 45 minutes yesterday, with the two sides only agreeing that they should meet again, Japan's delegation said.
There was no agreement on the key issues blocking diplomatic ties, and no further discussion is planned in Hanoi, the delegation said in a statement. No date was immediately announced for future talks.
The first day of talks also ended abruptly, on Wednesday afternoon, when North Korean negotiators reacted angrily to Japan's insistence that they must resolve the outstanding issue of the abduction of Japanese citizens by Pyongyang before improving the countries' ties.
Heading into the talks early yesterday at the North Korean Embassy in Hanoi, top Japanese envoy Koichi Haraguchi nevertheless insisted the furor a day earlier would not stop his side from pushing the issue again. Japan is prepared to address any war reparation issues in return, he said.
"We'll stress the abductions issue once again to make sure our position reaches the leaders of the [North Korean] government," Haraguchi said, despite admitting the day before that the North Koreans thought further discussion on the issue would be "meaningless."
The two-day talks in Hanoi were mandated by a six-nation agreement in February, when North Korea pledged to shut down its nuclear reactor in return for energy aid and talks on improved relations with regional powers, including Japan and the US.
Yesterday, the two sides merely reiterated their existing positions on the bilateral disputes but failed to draw any closer, the officials said. The talks did not deal with North Korea's nuclear weapons program, missiles or other regional concerns.
There were no handshakes when the talks resumed yesterday. North Korean officials escorted the Japanese into a bare meeting room containing a few chairs and a table.
The prickly atmosphere at the Hanoi talks contrasted sharply with negotiations in New York earlier this week involving US and North Korean officials which ended on an optimistic note.
Wednesday's flap highlighted the divisions between Tokyo and Pyongyang, Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso said.
"Matters were left in something of an equivocal state. We can take this to mean that what each side has been saying has been running on parallel tracks," Aso said in Tokyo.
Japan has refused to establish diplomatic relations unless North Korea accounts for its abduction of Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s. North Korea has demanded reparations from Japan for its harsh colonial rule.
A Japan-based pro-North Korean newspaper, Chosun Shinbo, accused Japan of interfering with the six-nation talks by focusing on the abduction issue and refusing to address its wartime brutality.
The Hanoi talks began hopefully, with Haraguchi saying Japan will take concrete steps to normalize ties by resolving issues surrounding Japan's wartime past and the abductions -- along with disputes over North Korea's nuclear and missile programs.
His counterpart, Song Il-ho, promised his best efforts in resolving the nuclear dispute, and expressed eagerness to normalize ties with Japan by obtaining Japan's atonement for its past colonization.
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