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TOKYO: Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Sunday again called on North Korea to resolve a row with Tokyo over past kidnappings, amid efforts to push forward a long-delayed nuclear disarmament deal.
"Without solving this issue, North Korea will never be accepted by the international community," he said in an interview with Japanese public broadcaster NHK. "This is what the North Koreans must realise."
"What's different from four or five years ago is that countries in the world now are aware of this problem as a result of our diplomacy," he added.
Abe's comments came as UN inspectors were preparing to visit North Korea on Tuesday for the first time in nearly five years, following a surprise 24-hour visit to the communist state by top US negotiator Christopher Hill.
Hill held talks with his North Korean counterpart to discuss ways to implement a February aid-for-disarmament deal, under which Pyongyang is to shut down its Yongbyon reactor, the source of its weapon-making plutonium.
Japan has taken the hardest line in the six-party disarmament talks, refusing to fund the deal due to the emotionally charged row over Pyongyang's past abductions of Japanese civilians in the 1970s and 1980s.
Abe, who has built his career around a tough stance on the kidnappings, said he backed Hill's visit to Pyongyang, downplaying speculation that Japan could be isolated among its negotiating partners over the abductions issue.
"Japan and the United States have an irreplaceable, solid alliance, which I reaffirmed with President (George W.) Bush when I visited the US," he said.
"We were informed beforehand by Mr. Hill of his move" to visit North Korea, he said.
"So we asked him to tell the North Koreans that they must take issues such as the bilateral talks with Japan and kidnappings seriously."
Upon his return from Pyongyang, Hill said he had raised the kidnapping row with North Korean officials.
In March, Japan and North Korea held their first formal bilateral talks in more than a year in Vietnam, but they achieved little.
In 2002, North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il in 2002 admitted the regime had kidnapped 13 Japanese to train spies in Japanese language and culture.
The North returned five of them and their families and says the rest are dead. But Tokyo believes more were kidnapped and are still alive in the North. - AFP/yy
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