US Envoy Urges North Korea to Resolve Abduction Row With Japan

Jun 22, 07:56 AM

Current Headlines: Text of report in English by Japanese news agency Kyodo

Seoul, June 22 Kyodo - Top US nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill said Friday after a two-day visit to Pyongyang that he called on North Korea to resolve a row with Japan over the abduction of Japanese nationals by North Korean agents in the 1970s and 1980s.

"With respect to the issue of whether I raised the abduction, I did. I did in the context, who returned from a two-day visit to North Korea, of the need for a better bilateral relation between DPRK (North Korea) and Japan," Hill said in a news conference in Seoul.

"I encouraged DPRK to address this issue of abduction which is such a fundamental interest to Japanese government and Japanese people." DPRK is the acronym of North Korea's official name - the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

He did not elaborate on North Korea's response, if any.

The issue is a major stumbling block to promoting talks on normalizing diplomatic relations between Japan and North Korea under the framework of the six-party talks on North Korea's denuclearization.

In a February deal that stipulated initial steps to be taken by North Korea in the process of denuclearization in return for energy aid, the six parties - the two Koreas, China, the United States and Russia - also agreed to set up five working groups including groups on normalizing Japan-North Korea ties as well as US-North Korea relations While Japan has repeated its demand that North Korea reinvestigate the abductions, Pyongyang has maintained that it has done all it can and that it considers the cases closed.

Japan has been calling on North Korea to revisit the cases of 12 of the 17 abduction victims on Japan's official list - all except five who were returned to Japan in 2002.

Hill, US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, made a surprise visit to North Korea on Thursday to discuss the nuclear issue.

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