Yonhap
3/6/2007
North Korean and Japanese officials met Tuesday in Hanoi to set the agenda for their two-day discussions scheduled to start here Wednesday to settle pending bilateral issues preventing them from normalizing diplomatic relations.
The Japanese representative to the talks, Koichi Haraguchi, met with his North Korean counterpart, Song Il-ho, Tuesday morning for the preparatory discussions.
The normalization talks are part of last month’s six-nation agreement aimed at dismantling North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. Under the accord, North Korea has 60 days to shut down its plutonium-producing Yongbyon facility in return for 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil for electricity production. Japan has said it won’t contribute to the aid unless there is progress on the issue of its citizens abducted by the North.
North Korea admitted to kidnapping 13 Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s and allowed five to return in 2002. Japan says 17 people were kidnapped and must be accounted for.
In addition to the abduction issue, the North Korean and Japanese diplomats are expected to focus on the ways for Japan to atone for its 1910-45 occupation of the Korean Peninsula.
Prior to the opening of the talks, meanwhile, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made clear in a parliamentary address in Tokyo that Japan will not compromise with North Korea over its abduction of Japanese citizens.
“Solving the nuclear problem was the main theme of the six-nation agreement, but the abduction issue is not one where any concession is possible,” Abe said. “Our stance is that unless they change their attitude, we won’t change.”
