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Japan, N Korea talks may start in Feb

TOKYO: Japan and North Korea look set to hold full-scale talks on establishing diplomatic ties in late February or early March, former Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama said on Wednesday.

Murayama, who headed a delegation of Japanese politicians to Pyongyang in early December, said full-scale normalisation talks would be preceded by a second round of preparatory meetings that were likely to be held later this month or early next month.

"I believe that the first round of (full-scale) normalisation talks could take place in early March or late February," Murayama told a news conference.

During a first round of preparatory in Beijing last month, Japan and North Korea agreed to meet again early this year.

Tokyo has made clear that a resumption of food aid to famine-hit North Korea depended on progress in normalising ties.

Japan suspended all food aid to Pyongyang after North Korea fired a missile over Japan's main island in August 1998.

In return for food, North Korean Red Cross officials promised during last month's talks in Beijing to urge Pyongyang to cooperate in an investigation of missing Japanese, some of whom Tokyo believes were abducted by North Korea.

Japan began normalisation talks with communist North Korea in early 1991, but Pyongyang withdrew a year later after Tokyo accused its agents of kidnapping Japanese citizens.

Tokyo has said the issue of missing Japanese was not a prerequisite for normalisation talks.

Officials from the Japanese and North Korean Red Cross organisations also agreed that Japanese married to North Koreans and living in the North would be allowed to visit relatives in Japan, possibly this spring.

Japanese spouses have made two previous visits since 1997, but a third was cancelled because Japanese wives in North Korea refused to visit their homeland, citing "inhumane acts" by Japan.-Reuters