TOKYO: Japan said yesterday that it would soon hold fresh official talks with North Korea after Pyongyang’s surprise promise to investigate the Cold War kidnappings of Japanese nationals.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, the top government spokesman, said the two governments had yet to decide when and where the talks would be held. On May 29, Tokyo announced it would ease sanctions against North Korea if the secretive state delivers on a pledge to reinvestigate the cases of Japanese citizens snatched in the 1970s and 1980s to train spies.
The announcement, after three days of talks between the two sides in Sweden, marked a major breakthrough in their very strained relationship and was the most positive engagement between Pyongyang and the outside world in many months.
At the time the North agreed to set up a special committee for the investigations which it vowed to launch in about three weeks.
“There is a need for us to make a cautious assessment after closely studying the composition (of the committee),” Suga said.
North Korea admitted in 2002 that it had kidnapped 13 Japanese citizens to train its spies in Japanese language and customs.
The admission was made when Japan’s then-Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi travelled to Pyongyang to hold a historic summit with then-North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il. AFP
