Saiki gets details of U.S.-N. Korea talks from U.S. envoy Kim

TOKYO, Oct. 8 Kyodo - Top Japanese nuclear negotiator Akitaka Saiki and U.S. special envoy Sung Kim reaffirmed on Wednesday their continued cooperation in press ahead with trying to resolve the North Korean nuclear and abduction issues, as they met in Tokyo to discuss details of last week's U.S.-North Korea talks, Japanese Foreign
Ministry officials said.

Kim briefed Saiki on the details of a trip to Pyongyang last week by U.S.
Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, including negotiations on a
concrete verification regime with Hill's North Korean counterpart Kim Kye Gwan,
and updated him on the U.S. government's analysis of the results of the visit,
the officials said.
Saiki, director general of the Japanese Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian
Affairs Bureau, met Hill in Seoul last Friday after the latter returned from
Pyongyang. But Hill left out some details at the time because he had not yet
briefed his own boss, sources close to the multilateral talks said earlier.
U.S. envoy Kim, who was recently promoted to an ambassadorial post with
responsibility for the six-way talks, accompanied Hill on the trip to North
Korea.
Kim did not respond to reporters' questions after the talks with Saiki. U.S.
Ambassador to Japan Thomas Schieffer, who was with Kim, also declined to
comment by saying ''pretty sensitive'' issues were discussed.
One of the main points of attention in Japan is whether Washington agreed in
the Pyongyang talks to remove North Korea from the U.S. blacklist of
terrorism-sponsoring states soon.
Tokyo is concerned such a move would undermine the prospects for progress on
resolving a dozen or more cases of the North's past abductions of Japanese
nationals, who remain missing. Pyongyang has yet to act on a promise in August
to launch reinvestigations into the abductions by the end of autumn.
In an apparent move to calm such anxiety, the officials said Saiki and Kim
reaffirmed that Japan and the United States will continue to work together to
ensure that Japan-North Korea ties, including the abduction issue, will move
forward along with the denuclearization process.
Ahead of the meeting, Foreign Ministry spokesman Kazuo Kodama said, ''The
Japanese government believes it is important for North Korea to agree to a
verification regime and resume the disablement process as soon as possible. We
will continue to work closely with the United States and other parties
concerned.''
Speaking at a regular news conference, the press secretary also reiterated that
Japan believes the matter of checking North Korea off the list of
terrorism-sponsoring states is ''an issue under the application of U.S.
domestic legislation.''
But he also emphasized that Japan will continue to work with the United States
on the issue and that Saiki and Kim were expected to ''communicate and
coordinate on this'' at their hour-long meeting.
The six-way denuclearization talks have stalled due to differences between
Washington and Pyongyang over the verification of information North Korea has
provided about its nuclear programs.
The standoff delayed removal of North Korea from the list of nations sponsoring
terrorism. Angered by the postponement, Pyongyang began work to restore a
nuclear complex capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium.
The complex in Yongbyon was in the process of being disabled as part of an
aid-for-denuclearization deal drawn up by the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia,
and the United States.
==Kyodo