Thursday, February 15, 2007
North Korea unhappy with Japan http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\02\15\story_15-2-2007_pg4_2
TOKYO: North Korea on Wednesday criticised Japan for refusing to provide aid under a breakthrough deal on the communist state's nuclear programme, a report said. Ri Pyong-dok, a researcher in charge of Japan at the North Korean foreign ministry, said Tokyo had obligations as one of the six nations involved in Tuesday's agreement in Beijing. "Japan is included among the six parties," Ri told Japan's Kyodo News in an interview in Pyongyang. "This is, I would like to remind you, something agreed on by all six parties." Tuesday's joint statement is "based on the principle of matching commitment with commitment and action with action," Ri was quoted as saying. Japan, the region's largest economy, has refused any funding for the deal under which North Korea would get an eventual one million tonnes of fuel oil for shutting down key nuclear facilities. Japan said it wants progress first in a row over North Korea's abductions of Japanese civilians in the 1970s and 1980s. Pyongyang has shot back by saying that more Koreans remain unaccounted for from Japan's brutal colonial 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean peninsula. "The settlement of crimes committed by Japan is a priority," Ri said. "Without that, there will be no normalization of relations between the two countries." Tuesday's joint six-nation statement called for Japan and North Korea to keep talking to establish diplomatic ties "on the basis of the settlement of unfortunate past and outstanding issues of concern." afp
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