Japan to lift North Korea sanctions
Saturday, 14 June 2008
TOKYO, June 13 (Agencies): Japan decided to partially lift its sanctions against North Korea after the communist nation promised a new probe into its kidnappings of Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 80s, news reports said Friday. Kyodo News agency and national broadcaster NKH quoted Foreign Minister Masahiko as saying Pyongyang also agreed to cooperate in the investigation of the 1970 hijacking of a Japanese jet that was flown to North Korea.
Word of a breakthrough came after the two sides - which do not have formal diplomatic relations -met for two days of bilateral meetings in Beijing.
The report, if verified, appeared to signal progress in Japan's decades-long campaign to resolve North Korea's abductions of Japanese citizens for use as spies and language teachers.
In its efforts to persuade North Korea to cooperate, Japan has imposed tight trade sanctions against the impoverished communist nation, banning, for instance, the running of a ferry between the two nations.
The reports did not specify which sanctions would be lifted, or when that might happen.
In the hijacking, nine Japanese leftist radicals commandeered a Japan Airlines flight in 1970 and took the plane to Pyongyang. Four of the kidnappers remain in North Korea, and Tokyo has long sought their return to Japan to face justice.
Word of a breakthrough came after the two sides - which do not have formal diplomatic relations -met for two days of bilateral meetings in Beijing.
The report, if verified, appeared to signal progress in Japan's decades-long campaign to resolve North Korea's abductions of Japanese citizens for use as spies and language teachers.
In its efforts to persuade North Korea to cooperate, Japan has imposed tight trade sanctions against the impoverished communist nation, banning, for instance, the running of a ferry between the two nations.
The reports did not specify which sanctions would be lifted, or when that might happen.
In the hijacking, nine Japanese leftist radicals commandeered a Japan Airlines flight in 1970 and took the plane to Pyongyang. Four of the kidnappers remain in North Korea, and Tokyo has long sought their return to Japan to face justice.