N. Korea to reopen probe into abductions

North Korea has promised to reopen its investigation into Japanese abducted by state agents and cooperate in handing over four hijackers holed up in Pyongyang since 1970 after they commandeered a Japan Air Lines plane on a domestic flight.

Akitaka Saiki, director-general of the Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, was reporting Friday on the outcome of two days of bilateral talks in Beijing between delegations of the two countries. Saiki headed the Japanese side.

In response, Tokyo will partially lift its economic sanctions against North Korea, Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura told a news conference the same day.

Machimura said the Japanese delegates told their North Korean counterparts that Pyongyang should reopen its investigation to locate Japanese abducted decades ago so they can finally return home.

In 2002, North Korea admitted that its agents had abducted 13 Japanese. Five of them were repatriated. Pyongyang said the rest had died.

Machimura welcomed North Korea's softened stance, saying, "We evaluate it as certain progress."

Previously, North Korea insisted the issue had already been resolved.

Clearly buoyed by the news, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda told reporters Friday: "North Korea has shown a willingness for discussion. We can say we are at the entrance to the negotiation process."

Tokyo imposed unilateral sanctions against North Korea in 2006 to protest its test-firing of ballistic missiles in the Sea of Japan and its underground nuclear test.

The sanctions have been extended three times. The last time was in April.

Under the measures, all North Korean ships are denied entry to Japanese ports, and all imports from North Korea are prohibited.

Because of Pyongyang's stated willingness to be more cooperative, Tokyo will lift some of the sanctions and allow chartered flights between the two countries.

It will also allow North Korean vessels, including the cargo-passenger ferry Man Gyong Bong-92, to enter Japanese ports, if only for loading humanitarian aid from the private sector.

The four hijackers living in North Korea are: Kimihiro Uomoto, 60; Takahiro Konishi, 63; Moriaki Wakabayashi, 61; and Shiro Akagi, 60.

They are among nine Red Army faction members who hijacked a JAL aircraft on a domestic flight to Pyongyang and sought asylum there in 1970.

Yoriko Mori, 55, widow of a hijacker Takamaro Tamiya, and Wakabayashi's wife Sakiko, 53, will also likely be sent back to Japan.

The two women and Uomoto are also wanted by Japanese police on suspicion of assisting in the abduction of Japanese youths from Europe to North Korea in the early 1980s.

Pyongyang apparently softened its stance on the abduction issue in the hope that the act will spur the United States to quickly lift its designation of North Korea as a state that sponsors terrorism.

The fact that Japanese hijackers brazenly lived in Pyongyang was cited as an example of its support of terrorism. (IHT/Asahi: June 14,2008)