N. Korea to look into abductions, Japan to partially lift sanctions

TOKYO, June 15 Kyodo - North Korea has promised to reinvestigate the issue of Japanese nationals abducted by its agents and expressed readiness to cooperate in handing over Japanese radicals who hijacked a plane to the North decades ago, Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura said Friday.

In response to such moves by North Korea during talks with Japan earlier this
week in Beijing, Tokyo will ease some of the sanctions it has imposed on
Pyongyang, including conditionally lifting a ban on North Korean ships stopping
in Japan, Machimura said.

He said that Japan sees the development as a ''certain degree of progress'' on
the abduction issue, but explained that it is not enough for Japan to decide to
participate in energy aid to North Korea under the six-party talks aimed at
denuclearizing the country.

Machimura made the remarks at a regular press conference after he, Prime
Minister Yasuo Fukuda and Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura were briefed by
Akitaka Saiki, who led the Japanese delegation to the talks with North Korea
held Wednesday and Thursday.

North Korea also announced Friday that it has decided to reinvestigate the
abduction cases and that it ''expresses willingness to cooperate'' in settling
the issue of Japanese people still in North Korea after hijacking a Japan
Airlines plane to the country in 1970.

In a press release carried by the official Korean Central News Agency,
Pyongyang also said Japan will lift restrictions on people's visits and the use
of chartered planes, and will allow North Korean-flagged ships to make port
calls for shipments of humanitarian aid.

Saiki, director general of the Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs
Bureau, had met with Song Il Ho, North Korea's ambassador for normalization
talks with Japan, in Beijing, but both sides had withheld details of the talks
until Friday.

Saiki, who returned to Tokyo from Beijing earlier Friday, met in the evening
with the families of Japanese nationals abducted to North Korea to explain his
talks with Song and the government's decision to lift some of the sanctions on
the country.

Prior to their meeting with Saiki, the relatives expressed disappointment that
the government had decided to partially lift sanctions, saying the families are
demanding ''nothing but a complete resolution'' of the abduction issue.

Concerning the Japanese abductees, Machimura said Friday that Saiki asserted in
the Beijing talks the need for North Korea to conduct another investigation in
order to ''find survivors and repatriate them'' to Japan, and North Korea
agreed to do so.

North Korea ''accepted Japan's assertion hitherto demanding an inquiry into the
abduction issue, which we believe is not resolved, and changed its position
from saying the abduction issue has been settled. So we value this as a certain
degree of progress,'' Machimura said.

''Japan and North Korea will promptly arrange the details of the
reinvestigation, and we expect a speedy investigation will be conducted and we
will be able to attain concrete results at an early time to resolve the
abduction issue, including the repatriation of abduction victims,'' he said.

Fukuda said separately that if the reinvestigation makes progress, Japan would
''ease measures such as economic sanctions,'' indicating the possibility of a
further lifting of sanctions on the North depending on future developments.

''The problem is the content of the reinvestigation, so we will work on the
details from now on,'' Fukuda told reporters at his office. ''I think we can
say that we are now standing at the start of the negotiation process.''

Japan and North Korea are divided over the number of Japanese nationals
abducted by North Korean agents in the 1970s and 1980s and their fate,
including whether they are still alive.

Japan has repeatedly demanded that North Korea return any abductees still in
the country, get to the bottom of the incidents and hand over to Japan the
agents responsible for the abductions.

Of the 17 abductees on Japan's official list, five returned to Japan in October
2002. North Korea said in September that year that eight have died, while two
never entered the country. Two others have been added to Japan's list of
victims since then.

Concerning the hijackers, Tokyo is seeking the handover of four of the nine
Japanese hijackers who sought asylum in North Korea and still remain in the
country as well as two Japanese women who married two of the hijackers,
Japanese Foreign Ministry sources said.

Three of the hijackers have died and two have returned to Japan and were tried
and convicted for their role in the hijacking.
As for the lifting of some sanctions, Japan would allow North Korean ships,
including the Mangyongbong-92 -- a North Korean ferry that had provided the
only direct passenger link between Japan and North Korea -- to enter Japanese
ports on condition that they are used for the transportation of humanitarian
goods to the North, Machimura said.

But the top Japanese government spokesman said the easing of sanctions will
take place only after Japan and North Korea discuss and agree how to carry out
the reinvestigation into the abduction issue.

Komura separately told reporters that the partial lifting of sanctions is a
''small step'' that is tantamount to North Korea's shift in its position from
saying the abduction issue has been settled to agreeing to reinvestigate it.

Machimura said the development is not big enough to warrant a reversal of
Japan's stance of not participating in energy aid to the North under the
six-party talks, also involving the United States, China, South Korea and
Russia, as long as it sees no progress on the abduction issue.
==Kyodo