Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

DATE=8/12/2004

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=NOKOR/JAPAN/TALKS (L)

NUMBER=2-318190

BYLINE=HEDA BAYRON

DATELINE=BEIJING

HEADLINE: Japan-North Korea Talks End With No Apparent Resolution on Abduction Issue

INTRO: Talks between Japanese and North Korean diplomats have ended in Beijing, apparently without a resolution to the issue of Japanese kidnap victims. As VOA's Heda Bayron reports from Beijing, the issue is crucial to establishing diplomatic ties between the two countries.

TEXT: A Japanese Embassy spokesman in Beijing says negotiators from Tokyo listened to North Korea's explanation about the 10 Japanese Pyongyang is believed to have kidnapped.

He did not provide details of the North Korean position, and did not say whether Japan found the information satisfactory or not.

He said the delegation returned to Tokyo Thursday to make recommendations on what action to take next.

The abduction issue clouds efforts to establish diplomatic ties between the two countries.

North Korea has admitted abducting 13 Japanese in the 1970s and '80s to train North Korean spies. Five of them returned to Japan in 2002, but Pyongyang says the other eight are dead.

Tokyo wants a full accounting of the eight, and information on two others the Japanese believe were snatched.

Some analysts think Pyongyang hopes that establishing diplomatic ties with Tokyo could lead to better relations with Washington. The United States and other countries are pushing Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons programs, which the impoverished North refuses to do, insisting it receive aid and security guarantees first.

Kim Choong Nam is a North Korea expert at the East West Center in the United States.

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"Normalization means a reduction of this nuclear threat. North Korea is struggling for its survival, so normalization is a breakthrough for North Korea's survival strategy."

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Japan, South Korea, China, the United States and Russia have been negotiating with Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear ambitions.

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Mr. Kim says the priority for Japan is the nuclear issue.

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"Without the resolution of the nuclear issue, normalization is constrained."

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A fourth round of talks on the nuclear issue is expected to be held in Beijing next month.

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Japan colonized the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945. After that, the peninsula was divided into the capitalist South and communist North. Tokyo has never had diplomatic relations with the North. (SIGNED)

NEB/HK/HB/KPD/TW/KBK