Japan and North Korea will meet by mid-August to discuss ways to normalize their relations, Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso said.
Talks on normalization are part of the six-nation agreement reached in February aiming to end North Korea's nuclear arms program. Negotiations between Japan and North Korea in March in Vietnam broke off after the two sides couldn't agree on resolving North Korea's kidnapping of Japanese decades ago and Japan's occupation of the Korean peninsula from 1910 to 1945.
“North Korea wants to resolve the past, and for us, the abduction issue is a big obstacle to normalization of ties,'' Aso said today at a regular press conference in Tokyo. “Solving the abduction issue is prerequisite to normalizing relations.''
A date and venue for the meeting haven't been decided, he said.
North Korea acknowledged kidnapping 13 Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s and allowed five to return in October 2002. Former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi brought back their relatives from Pyongyang after meeting leader Kim Jong Il on May 22, 2004. Japan maintains at least 17 citizens were kidnapped and must be accounted for, while North Korea insists the issue has been settled.
North Korea earlier this month shut down its Yongbyon nuclear reactor and allowed international nuclear inspectors in the country, a measure that North Korea promised to implement by mid-April under the February accord.
Aso said the closure of the reactor was “a certain amount of progress'' that came behind schedule.
The six-party talks, which also involve China, the U.S., South Korea and Russia, last week in Beijing fell short of the goal to establish a timetable for declaring and disabling North Korea's nuclear programs, the next step after closing the Yongbyon reactor.
U.S. envoy Christopher Hill yesterday in Washington said an agreement on the next steps in the process is feasible by the end of the year.
