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Japan, N Korea set for historic talks this week

TOKYO: Japanese and North Korean officials meet in Pyongyang on Tuesday to kick off historic but difficult talks for the first time in more than seven years on establishing diplomatic ties.

But analysts saw no immediate prospect of an early agreement.

The two historic foes have agreed to sit down face to face since North Korea's icy ties with the United States have started to thaw and Pyongyang has recently reached out to other Western countries.

The rapprochement talks in Pyongyang are widely seen as a fresh sign that the secretive Stalinist state could be seeking to move out of its Cold War isolation and strengthen relations with the West to secure desperately needed aid.

A Japanese delegation led by chief negotiator Kojiro Takano left for Beijing on Monday en route to the North Korean capital for a five-day visit from Tuesday for full-scale talks with the hermit state.

Japanese officials said huge hurdles must be cleared before progress can be expected toward establishing diplomatic ties.

These include the thorny issue of 10 Japanese citizens Tokyo believes were kidnapped by North Korean agents in the 1970s and 1980s. Many disappeared from remote areas on the coast of the Sea of Japan that separates the two countries.

North Korea, which denies having abducted anyone, has agreed to launch a nationwide investigation into the fate of what it calls "missing" Japanese nationals.

The issue is a highly emotive one in Japan, and Tokyo wants the alleged abductees returned home.

Japan began normalisation talks with North Korea in early 1991. But the talks collapsed the following year when Pyongyang's negotiators stormed out after Tokyo accused North Korean agents of kidnapping a Japanese woman.

In a move that could further complicate talks, North Korea has repeatedly demanded Tokyo apologise and pay reparations for its harsh 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean peninsula.

Some Japanese officials fear the Stalinist state could also press demands that Tokyo pay compensation for the period after World War Two when Korea was partitioned and Japan shunned the communist North.

Officials said Japan would not accept North Korea's demand for compensation although it would be ready to offer an apology directly to Pyongyang for its colonial rule.

When Japan and South Korea normalised their relations in 1965, Tokyo agreed to give Seoul $500 million -- $300 million as a grant and the rest in loans.

Tokyo has never recognised the communist government of North Korea, still in tense confrontation with the capitalist South nearly half a century after the 1950-53 Korean War.

Japan set the stage for resuming talks by pledging last month to give 100,000 tonnes of rice to famine-hit North Korea.

But Japanese officials said Tokyo would not extend additional aid to Pyongyang until the two make substantive progress in their talks over key bilateral issues.

A Japanese government source said Tokyo would include in the agenda for the Pyongyang talks global concerns over North Korea's missile programme.

Relations between Tokyo and Pyongyang hit rock bottom when North Korea launched a three-stage missile over Japan's main island of Honshu in August 1998.

North Korea promised the United States last year not to proceed with further testing of its long-range Taepodong ballistic missile and Washington quickly lifted some trade barriers against Pyongyang a half-century after the Korean War.-Reuters