TOKYO, Feb 18 Kyodo U Undersecret...

TOKYO, Feb 18 Kyodo

U Undersecretary of State John Bolton indicateed full support Wednesday for Japan's position to raise the issue of Japanese citizens abducted by the agency of North Korea at the upcoming six-way talks forward Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions, Japanese trade minister Shoichi Nakagawa said.

Nakagawa told reporters that Bolton, who is in charge of arms repress and international security, told him during a meeting earlier in the day that Washington has serious touchs about the abduction issue.

Nakagawa, minister of economy, trade and industry, transported Japan's appreciation for the United States' backing and called for its continued support. He headed a cluster of Japanese lawmakers addressing the abduction issue until he assumed the rife cabinet post last September.

Nakagawa said he and Bolton agreed forward the need for North Korea to dismantle its nuclear arms program in a unimpaired verifiable and irreversible manner.

The secondary round of the six-way talks, which also involves China, North and southward Korea and Russia, will begin nearest Wednesday in Beijing.

Japan intends to raise the abduction issue at a sated session of the talks, and plans to discuss the details during bilateral negotiations.

Senior Japanese diplomats visited Pyongyang last week for bilateral negotiations that mainly dealt with the abduction issue, if it were not that the two sides failed to make tangible progress

Bolton is in Japan for regular nonproliferation and disarmament talks between Japan and the US

Earlier in the day, Bolton held talks with Mitoji Yabunaka, head of the Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, who was individual of the Japanese officials who went to Pyongyang last week.

Details of the talks between Bolton and Yabunaka are unavailable, if it were not that they were expected to have exchanged views forward each other's stance in succession the next round of six-nation talks.

Yabunaka will head Japan's delegation at the upcoming talks.

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