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DPRK,Japan Back at Table
Negotiators from Japan and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea resumed stalled talks yesterday on establishing diplomatic ties, but no immediate breakthrough is in sight.
On the first of two days of talks in Tokyo, Pyongyang repeated its call for Japan to apologize and pay reparations for its harsh 1910-45 rule of the Korean Peninsula.
Japan returned by raising the sensitive issue of 10 Japanese citizens Tokyo believes were kidnapped by DPRK agents in the past.
"Japan has not settled its past. We need to remove this obstacle in order to establish friendly ties,'' Jong Thae-hwa, head of the DPRK delegation, told Japanese Foreign Minister Yohei Kono before the two sides began formal talks.
Japan gave the Republic of Korea US$500 million in financial aid when they normalized ties in 1965, but Tokyo has never recognized the Pyongyang government and has said it would not accept demands for compensation, although it would offer an apology.
But times are changing. Japan, keen to boost its diplomatic clout in Asia, is under pressure to establish ties with DPRK, now emerging from its Cold War isolation and reaching out to the West.
The conflicting demands, however, mean the second round of normalization talks look difficult. These talks follow a first round in April, when the two sides met in Pyongyang to discuss the subject for the first time in seven years.
Previous talks have foundered on both issues raised yesterday, and some observers say only top leaders could make the key decisions needed to break the stalemate.
But a Japanese official who attended yesterday's talks said that despite Pyongyang's tough stance, DPRK negotiators seemed keener for talks than in the past. Lawmakers who met the DPRK delegates later in the day got a similar impression.
"I felt they were more positive,'' Kyodo news agency quoted ruling party lawmaker Masaaki Nakayama, who chairs the Japan-DPRK Parliamentarians' League, as saying after meeting Jong and the other negotiators yesterday.
The two delegations will meet formally again tomorrow.
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