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Japan to offer food

aid to N Korea

TOKYO: Japan plans to resume food aid to North Korea and send 100,000 tonnes of rice in March, ahead of their first formal talks in eight years in April, a daily said on Sunday.

The Japanese government is likely to send the food aid to the Stalinist state through the UN World Food Programme, the Yomiuri Shimbun said, quoting government sources.

Some members of Japan's ruling coalition parties have expressed opposition to the aid, but the sources said it could have a favourable effect on negotiations, the daily said.

Food aid was suspended in August 1998 after North Korea fired a missile over Japan.

North Korea has reportedly faced a shortage of between 1.2 million and 1.5 million tonnes of grain.

The daily also said Japan and North Korea planned to resume diplomatic normalisation talks in April in Pyongyang following a series of unofficial preparatory meetings.

In late 1992, Pyongyang walked out of rapprochement talks when Tokyo raised concerns about one of 10 Japanese citizens allegedly kidnapped by North Korean agents to train its spies.

After the planned initial meeting in Pyongyang, Tokyo is to host the second round.

The planned meetings are likely to be headed by Kojiro Takano, ambassador to Saudi Arabia, and Jong Thae-Hwa, who was recently appointed North Korean ambassador for normalisation of ties with Japan, the daily said.

The meetings will core Japan's wartime compensation of North Korea, the Yomiuri said. Japan occupied the Korean peninsula between 1910 and 1945.

Pyongyang demands that Tokyo pay war reparations in addition to compensation for assets lost during the occupation, while Japan argues that its pre-war ties should be characterised as colonisation, not armed conflict.

Japan last month lifted all remaining North Korea sanctions, including a food aid ban, which were imposed after Pyongyang test-fired a medium-range missile over Japan in August 1998.

The two sides held preparatory talks in Beijing late last month in an attempt to move closer towards establishing full diplomatic relations.ÑAFP