Japan warns NKorea trying to divide Tokyo and Washington
TOKYO (AFP) — Japanese Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura on Sunday warned against North Korea's drive to divide Japan and the United States following a dramatic turn in Washington-Pyongyang ties last week.
North Korea on Thursday submitted a list of its nuclear programmes, leading Washington to take Pyongyang off a blacklist of state sponsors of terrorism, despite Tokyo's objections.
"North Korea's biggest tactics is to estrange Japan from the United States and divide them," Komura said on the public broadcaster NHK.
But neither Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda nor US President George W. Bush would "follow it to please North Korea," he added. "What is necessary is that Japan and the United States cooperate in dealing with North Korea."
Japan has been left in a dilemma as it has been using the delisting issue as leverage to pressure the North to resolve an emotionally charged row over Japanese nationals kidnapped by Pyongyang agents.
The development came amid media speculation here in recent weeks that Bush might meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il if and when they attend the August 8 opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics in Beijing.
The weekly Shukan Bunshun, the daily Nikkan Gendai and other media have reported China invited Kim to attend the ceremony and that plans were afoot to arrange an unprecedented US-North Korean summit.
North Korea admitted in 2002 that it abducted Japanese civilians in the 1970s and 1980s to train its spies in Japanese culture and language.
It has since returned five victims and their families and earlier declared the case was closed as all other kidnap victims were dead.
Japan has insisted that there are other kidnap victims who are alive but kept in the North possibly because they knew secrets of the reclusive communist state.
But Pyongyang agreed earlier this month to reinvestigate the abduction cases in return for Tokyo's decision to relax some sanctions against the North.
"The Japanese government has been asking (North Korea) to find survivors and return all of them," Komura said on another network TV Asahi.
"There has been no explanation to convince the Japanese government of their deaths," the foreign minister said.
