Japan-DPRK talks end without agreement
(China Daily)
Updated: 2006-02-09 05:33

Tokyo and Pyongyang wrapped up their five-day talks in Beijing yesterday with no breakthroughs reported on key issues such as abduction cases and improving diplomatic ties.

The two sides, which had held separate meetings of three topic panels since Saturday, conducted a plenary meeting yesterday morning.

Koichi Haraguchi (L), the head of the Japanese delegation, and his aides attend the fifth day meeting with their North Korean counterparts in Beijing February 8, 2006. [Reuters]

At a press briefing held at the Japanese Embassy in Beijing at noon, Japanese chief negotiator Koichi Haraguchi said the two sides still have big differences in views and stances, but that they would meet again.

The time and venue for the next round of the talks have not been set.

Song Il-ho, ambassador of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) in China, in charge of normalization talks with Japan, said that the two sides held honest and open-minded discussions and understood each other's positions "more clearly."

At the same time, Song noted that they "discovered there are big differences of opinion."

He said the two sides needed to work on narrowing their differences.

The talks, the first high-level bilateral contact in three years after meetings in Malaysia in 2002, had been conducted in a three-track format covering topics such as abduction issues, normalization of diplomatic ties and security issues.

The abduction dispute has proven to be the most contentious, with two meetings held on the issue during the current round, but little progress reported.

In 2002, the DPRK admitted to kidnapping 13 Japanese citizens and released five of them, saying the other eight had died. Tokyo, however, still wants evidence of the deaths. The DPRK wants to settle historical issues regarding Japan's colonial rule over the Korean Peninsula from 1910-45.

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said yesterday that Japan would continue to negotiate frequently with the DPRK to resolve contentious issues between the two countries, Kyodo News reported.

Koizumi described the outcome of the talks in Beijing as " discouraging," and acknowledged that the two countries remain far apart in their positions.

"But I think we will have to deal patiently with the matter," he was quoted as telling reporters at his official residence.

(China Daily 02/09/2006 page2)