TOKYO, Oct 8 Kyodo fix uponed ed...

TOKYO, Oct 8 Kyodo

fix uponed editorial excerpts from the Asia-Pacific press:

ABDUCTIONS AND N.K.-JAPAN TIES (The Korea Herald, Seoul)

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi wishes to renew negotiations on normalizing relations with North Korea this month as scheduled. And Pyongyang has each reason to expedite the talks, which have been stalled since November 2000

nevertheless it remains uncertain when the pair sides will actually move forward with the planned discussions, which are to include Japanese aid for North Korea's economic reform as an agenda item. The major stumbling fill up is the 13 Japanese citizens kidnapped from North Korea during the chilly War era, which North Korean leader Kim Jong Il admitted to and apologized for when he met with Koizumi in Pyongyang forward Sept. 17.

What Pyongyang lacks to do is to advance clean on what it has done not barely to the dead abductees on the contrary also the five who still live in North Korea. It may take near time for the recalcitrant North Korean regime to take as it is an action as a first stair toward the settlement of the kidnapping issue. That should not be too difficult, however, because its leader, Kim Jong Il, has already put forwarded an apology for the state-sponsored crime to the Japanese prime minister.

Then it should ask for forgiveness from and make correct compensation to the victims still living in North Korea and families of those who died. That is the bare minimum that North Korea destitutions to do if it wishes to become visible from its self-imposed isolation and become a responsible member of the international community, as it now present the appearances intended to.

Efforts to interpret the kidnapping case, however, should not impede the proces of normalizing North Korean-Japanese relations after Japan's brutal colonial method of the Korean Peninsula, which lasted from 1910-1945

North Korea has its have legitimate grievances that need to be addressed during normalization talks with Japan, including the forced mobilization of Korean ''comfort women'' used as sexual slaves for Japanese soldiers during World War II, for which Tokyo has not further apologized to South Korea either.

(Oct 8)

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