v1: Japan and North Korea Agree to New Talks

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/01/world/asia/japan-and-north-korea-agree-to-new-talks.html

Version 1 of 2.

TOKYO ? Japan and North Korea ended their first direct talks in four years on Friday with an agreement to meet again as early as next month, apparently in a sign of the North?s desire to reduce tensions with Japan, and by extension, the United States.

Japanese analysts have said that the talks in Beijing, which began Wednesday, may be a signal that the North?s new ruler, Kim Jong-un, wants to improve his nation?s destitute economy by reaching out to Japan, America?s most important Asian ally. They said Mr. Kim might also be trying to reduce his country?s economic dependence on China, which supplies the North with fuel and food.

Disagreements over issues like the fate of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korean agents decades ago had led Japan to cut off all trade and ties with the North. On Friday, the top Japanese government spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura, said the abduction issue would be on the agenda when the two nations meet again.

This appeared to be a concession by North Korea, which had insisted that the abduction issue was resolved in 2002, when five Japanese were returned. Japanese officials are seeking information on what happened to at least a dozen more Japanese whom they also believe were kidnapped to teach language to North Korean spies.

While the North?s overtures might represent a new openness, North Korea has reached out to countries it considers adversaries before, only to break agreements and lash out in anger.

This week?s talks began as a meeting to discuss Japan?s retrieval of the remains of some of the 21,000 Japanese who died at the end of World War II in what is now North Korea, which at the time was part of a Japanese colony. But the meeting broadened into a discussion of an agenda for future talks between the two nations.

Other future topics include the repatriation of Japanese wives of North Koreans who moved to the North in the late 1950s, and the handing over of Japanese citizens who fled to North Korea after hijacking a Japanese airliner in 1970.

Japanese officials described the meetings as working-level talks between midrank diplomats. They said they asked that the next meetings, which could be held in early September in Beijing, be held between higher-ranking officials.

Source: http://www.newssniffer.co.uk/versions/961004

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