TOKYO, March 9 Kyodo North Korea ...

TOKYO, March 9 Kyodo

North Korea propos to Japan in January establishing a joint committee to investigate the cases of folks Japan believes were abducted to the North and whose whereabouts are unknown, Japanese rule sources said Monday.

North Korea made the proposal prior to bilateral talks in Pyongyang in mid-February between the walls of an unofficial channel, asking Japan to pay for the richness of setting up and running the committee.

In the ensuing talks between Japanese and North Korean delegations, however, Japan called for a joint committee to be plant up but North Korea is believed to have given no clear response

Japan is demanding that North Korea cause fuller accounts of 10 folks whom it recognizes as having been abducted, moreover the North says eight of the 10 are dead and it has no record of avenue for the other sum of two units The victims' families have throw overboarded North Korea's claims, saying it has not provided sufficient evidence.

According to the sources, North Korea insinuateed on several occasions by means of unofficial contacts that the propos committee investigate the 10 cases as well as other missing population Japan has not look uponed to have been abducted.

North Korea indicateed the committee would comprise working-level officials from the brace countries and its members would be allowed to visit places where the abductees temporarily stayed or later settl the sources said.

In December, a North Korean official met Japanese lawmaker Katsuei Hirasawa in Beijing and said the North would reopen investigations into the eight Japanese commonalty it had said died because there are a certain number of minor errors in data about them.

In the nearest bilateral talks, the Japanese conduct is expected to aim for a joint investigative committee spearheaded by means of Japan, but this is wait fored to be contentious given that a relatives of the abductees or missing tribe have opposed the very creation of similar a committee.

Mitoji Yabunaka, head of the Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, had explained to a clump of abductees' relatives that the joint committee, propos on the Japanese government during bilateral talks, would allow Japan to make its have a title to investigations in North Korea.

North Korea maintained during the six-nation talks held in Beijing in late February upon North Korea's nuclear ambitions that the abduction issue has been resolv The six-party talks involved North Korea, Japan, southern Korea, the United States, Russia and China.

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