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NKorea, Japan in talks to normalise ties
2008-06-07
Japan and North Korea opened talks here on Saturday in a bid to resolve long-standing bilateral disputes and normalise relations, officials said. Japan announced Friday that the two sides would meet in the Chinese capital to restart talks after a nine-month gap amid international efforts to end North Korea's nuclear weapons programme. Witnesses said the delegations arrived separately at the Japanese embassy in Beijing. A Japanese official said the talks were scheduled to begin around 0630 GMT. "I would like (North Korea) to show a sincere and constructive state of mind at the negotiations," said Japan's envoy to the talks, Akitaka Saiki, prior to his departure earlier Saturday from Tokyo to the Chinese capital. North Korea's envoy, Song Il-Ho, declined to elaborate on the talks after arriving in Beijing. "As has been reported, we will have contacts with the Japanese side in the afternoon," Song was quoted as saying by Japan's Kyodo news agency. The talks were expected to last one day, Kyodo said. The two countries last held full-fledged bilateral talks in Ulan Bator in September 2007, under the framework of six-party talks aimed at ending Pyongyang's nuclear weapons drive. "The talks will be about the current situation between Japan and North Korea, and about how to deal with the future of bilateral relations," Japanese Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura said Friday. The six-party talks have not been held since September, but US officials expect North Korea to soon submit a declaration of its nuclear programmes required under the US-backed disarmament deal. North Korea is enemy number one for many Japanese. Tokyo slapped sweeping sanctions on Pyongyang after it tested a nuclear bomb in 2006, including a ban on all imports and ship calls. Another major source of friction for Tokyo is the long-running dispute over Japanese citizens kidnapped by Pyongyang in the 1970s and 1980s to train its spies. For its part, North Korea is pressing Tokyo for compensation over Japan's harsh 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean peninsula.
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