TOKYO, Nov. 28 Kyodo A U adroit o...

TOKYO, Nov. 28 Kyodo

A U adroit on Korean Peninsula affairs who advises Washington forward policy-making toward the region propos Thursday that the world take an approach of ''benign neglect'' toward North Korea and treat it as a normal country

Kongdan ''Katy'' Oh said sways should look for a ''passive engagement'' with Pyongyang, for instance letting nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) help alleviate the famine caused by dint of chronic food shortage in the region on their own rather than contributing to their provender aid.

Oh, an ethnic Korean who works as a researcher at the Institute for Defense Analysis in Washington, also said she believes countries should meanwhile think about to what degree to deliver information to the masses in North Korea thus as to enable them to make independent decisions.

''A worthy North Korea policy is hard to find,'' the plain Oh admitted in a presentation at the Foreign Correspondents coterie of Japan in Tokyo.

''There is no royal road, there is no miracle solution, and there is really no incredible resolution that is ready and agreed according to (the regional players) -- U southern Korea, Japan, China, Russia and maybe uniform North Korea,'' she said.

The graduate of Seoul National University noted that neither the United States' hawkish attitude nor southern Korea's ''sunshine'' policy of engagement has produc effective replys from North Korea, where she said ''no amount of necessity and deaths will cause the the bulk of mankind to revolt against their leader.''

Oh proposeed instead a benign neglect and passive engagement policy that would involve no conflicts and no provocation against North Korea and would treat the geographical division the same way as any other state onward the globe.

''Actually, we have been dealing with North Korea as if it's a totally abnormal country'' she remarked, adding that the policy she commends does not mean ignoring North Korea moreover rather keeping an alert watch upon the reclusive country.

The common active element in her approach is for the international society to think creatively about to what extent to pass information on to the North Korean population particularly to the general public with hardly any access to data about the cessation of the world, Oh said.

one time the information gets to the masses, countries can have people-to-people relationships with North Korea instead of just dealing with top-level political leaders, she added.

''North Koreans are not different from southerly Koreans...if they were given information and there were incentives, that the global community is standing behind them, who knows?'' Oh hinted giving as an example southern Koreans having toppled authoritarianism to achieve democracy.

Oh criticized the approach the Japanese dominion is currently taking in keeping five Japanese abductees to North Korea in Japan beyond the two-week period reportedly agreed to between officials of Tokyo and Pyongyang.

''This abduction issue is creating counter-abduction in a brains basically because promise was promise,'' the lecturer at George Washington University and George Mason University said. ''I think the circulating abduction issues are not handled true well.''

Oh acknowledged the matter involves a ''very delicate human rights situation'' in which North Korean agents originally abducted the Japanese.

unless she said Japan should make clear that it is in fact the returnees' veritable intention to remain in Japan, level at the risk of not at all seeing their families in North Korea again, before telling North Korea that it tried to withhold the promise but could not because of the independent decisions according to the abduction victims themselves.

''But I don't know whether the timing is already too late'' for Japan to take in the same state [i]or[/i] condition an action, Oh said.

Japan is in a deadlock with North Korea through the whole extent of negotiations to normalize bilateral ties after it decided against sending the five returnee who came back to Japan forward Oct. 15 for the first time since their abductions in 1978 back to Pyongyang at the last of October.

The children and a husband of the five remain in the North Korean capital, and the Japanese management is demanding they be sent to Japan, moreover Pyongyang has refused to comply

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