US Official Says Will Not Put North Korea Abduction Issue Aside

Jun 25, 11:35 PM

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

Washington, 25 June: The United States has no intention of prioritizing the dismantling of North Korea's nuclear programmes at the expense of the issue of Pyongyang's abductions of Japanese nationals, a senior US administration official said Monday [25 June].

The official told Kyodo News in an interview, speaking on condition of anonymity, that Washington is ready to pressure North Korea mainly through financial measures should Pyongyang fail to start taking denuclearization steps.

On the abduction issue, the official said, "The idea that somehow we are putting some issues aside in order to make progress on other issues is just not true."

"I know that's a concern in Japan, but it's not the reality on the American side," he said. "My president fully believes that a solution to the North Korean problem is not only dealing with the nuclear weapons, but it also deals with other aspects of North Korean behaviour, and particularly human rights behaviour."

North Korea admitted in 2002 that it had abducted and taken to its territory 13 Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s, saying eight of them are dead.

Tokyo and Pyongyang are at odds over the number of Japanese nationals North Korean agents abducted, as well as over the fate of some of the abductees. Tokyo has listed 17 people as having been abducted.

The official said it will take a long time before the United States removes North Korea from a US list of "state sponsors of terrorism" as it should come along with Pyongyang's improvement of relations with Washington and Tokyo.

The State Department's declassifying of North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism would give the impoverished country access to assistance from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, in addition to trade with the United States.

As for the possibility that North Korea will fail to take initial denuclearization steps as specified in last February's six-way agreement, the official said he wants to "stay optimistic" at this point.

But he said Washington has "contingency plans" in the event Pyongyang fails to take the steps such as shutting down and sealing its Yongbyon nuclear facility.

"We have made no understandings or agreements from the North that would preclude us, if we saw illegal activity, not to take the kinds of actions that we think are necessary," he said, referring to North Korea's suspected money laundering and counterfeiting activity.

"We will always take the actions to protect the international financial community and our citizens from that kind of thing," the official said.

The United States decided in March to bar US banks from doing business with Banco Delta Asia SARL because the bank "served as a primary conduit for North Korean illicit actors to access the international financial system."

The decision delayed the transfer of some 25m dollars in North Korea-linked funds that had been frozen at the Macao bank until recently and was cited by Pyongyang in its refusal to implement the February six-party deal on dismantling its nuclear programmes.

The six-party talks bring together the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia.

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