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DPRK-Japan Inter-governmental Talks Held

Korean Central News Agency of DPRK via Korea News Service (KNS)

    Pyongyang, February 9 (KCNA) -- The DPRK-Japan inter-governmental talks for the normalization of their relations took place in Beijing from Feb. 4 to 8, 2006. The talks discussed the issue of Japan's redemption of its past and security and abduction issues to implement the DPRK-Japan Pyongyang Declaration adopted on September 17, 2002 and other issues of mutual concern.
    On the issue of Japan's redemption of its past, the DPRK side clarified its stand that Japan should conduct economic cooperation with the DPRK as stipulated in the declaration, to begin with, and that it should pay for the hideous crimes perpetrated against humanity such as forcible drafting of more than 8.4 million Koreans, massacre of more than one million of them and its taking away 200,000 Korean women as "comfort women" for the Imperial Japanese Army as a separate issue from the economic cooperation.
    As regards the status of the Koreans in Japan, one of the issues to be settled for Japan's redemption of its past, the DPRK side recalled the background against which the Koreans were forced to settle in Japan and their present conditions and requested the Japanese side to stop the suppression of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan and the discrimination against the Koreans in Japan, guarantee them national education and promote it, enforce socio-economic policies for them and protect their economic activities.
    Turning to the issue of cultural treasures, the DPRK side reiterated its stand that Japan should unconditionally return all the cultural treasures it looted in Korea during its occupation of Korea on the principle of returning treasures to the places of their origin, restore the devastated cultural treasures to their former glory and compensate for those treasures which were so severely vandalized that it is hard to return and restore.
    Concerning the security issue, the DPRK side pointed out that its missile launch is an issue pertaining to its sovereignty from a to z and urged Japan to refrain from conducting such acts that may spark off serious concern about regional peace and stability as the enactment of a war law, the retrogressive revision of the constitution, nuclear weaponization and space militarization through the launch of spy satellites. As regards the abduction issue, the DPRK side reiterated the sincere efforts it has exerted for the settlement of this issue so far and its stand toward the issue and pointed to the injustice of the Japanese side's new assertions about the "repatriation of survivors", "probe into the truth" and "extradition of criminals," etc. It also strongly demanded Japan extradite the Japanese criminals who had lured and abducted DPRK citizens in recent years.