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Japan threatens to cut aid to NKorea after false evidence on kidnap row

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TOKYO (AFP) - Japan protested to North Korea and threatened to cut food aid after the Stalinist state handed over other people's ashes to prove the death of a Japanese woman whom it had abducted at age 13.

DNA tests showed that charred remains handed over to a Japanese delegation last month did not belong to Megumi Yokota, the most famous of Japanese nationals kidnapped by North Korean agents during the Cold War, officials said.

"The bones belonged to a number of other people," Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda announced, causing relief in Japan but also fueling new anger at North Korea.

"It would be difficult under such circumstances to provide further (food) assistance to North Korea," Hosoda said. "A very big obstacle has emerged against future negotiations between Japan and North Korea."

A protest was lodged with Pyongyang's embassy in Beijing by telephone after North Korean diplomats in China refused to set an appointment to hear from the Japanese side, the foreign ministry said.

Japan has already passed laws which it can invoke to impose economic sanctions to press cash-strapped Pyongyang to come clean about its abductions of Japanese and its nuclear arms ambitions.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who has been accused domestically of being too soft on North Korea, called the false evidence "extremely regrettable" but ruled out halting all dialogue.

"I'm not thinking about implementing food assistance now. We will watch how this matter develops," Koizumi told reporters.

"We must continue negotiations with both dialogue and pressure on mind. We still need dialogue in dealing with North Korea."

Tsutomu Takebe, secretary general of Koizumi's Liberal Democratic Party, said of North Korea: "Some people call it a rogue state and I share the impression."

Kyodo news agency later reported that a second set of remains were found not to include those of another abductee, Kaoru Matsuki.

Analysis of the cremated remains found DNA of several people including a woman, Kyodo said quoting an unnamed government source.

North Korea had reportedly told Japan that the remains may have included those of Matsuki, who was abducted in Spain in 1980 when he was 26.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il admitted to Koizumi at a 2002 summit that his country had kidnapped Japanese citizens to train spies in Japanese language and culture.

At their second summit last May, Koizumi promised to provide North Korea with 250,000 tonnes of food and 10 million dollars worth of medical supplies as "humanitarian" aid.

Japan has already shipped 125,000 tonnes of the food and seven million dollars worth of the medicines. A normalisation of relations could mean a massive influx of Japanese aid to the impoverished state.

North Korea allowed five Japanese citizens to return home after the 2002 summit but insists that eight other kidnap victims including Yokota had died.

Yokota was a schoolgirl when she was kidnapped in 1977 by communist agents. North Korea contends she died as a depressed adult in the early 1990s after marrying a North Korean man and bearing his daughter.

After months of foot-dragging, North Korea last month handed over to a visiting Japanese team medical records and other artefacts said to prove the deaths, along with personal items such as photographs of Yokota.

Families of the kidnap victims have suspected that North Korea was not letting the eight victims go home because they may have knowledge of secrets such as the regime's ways of training spies.

"Backed by indignation among the people, we demand that the government promptly impose economic sanctions," Shigeru Yokota, the father of Megumi, angrily told a news conference.

"I feel relieved," said his wife, Sakie. "I am convinced that Megumi is still alive along with other victims."

If Japan gets tough, it will add to pressure being applied by the US administration to force North Korea back to six-nation talks aimed at dismantling its nuclear weapons programme.

December 8, 2004 at 11:42 PM in Japan | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home