A group of Japanese journalists is to visit North Korea's capital Pyongyang this week following an invitation from the communist state, an official at the South Korean branch office of a Japanese daily told Yonhap News Agency Monday.
"The group is to visit Pyongyang from Tuesday through Saturday," a correspondent from Japan's Asahi Shimbun said in a telephone interview.
"Asahi Shimbun plans to send three journalists, including a photo journalist," he added, asking anonymity.
The remarks came shortly after a South Korean official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said earlier in the day that the North has offered to invite Japan's journalists to its capital before the end of the month in an apparent attempt to repeat its claim that a Japanese citizen it has admitted to kidnapping decades ago is dead.
The correspondent from the Japanese newspaper said the North's offer was made "two to three weeks ago."
Another government official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the group is expected to consist of journalists from six Japanese news outlets. They include the Yomiuri Shimbun, Kyodo News, NHK, TBS and NTV.
The envisioned trip follows a rare press conference by the South Korean husband of the Japanese abduction victim, Megumi Yokota, in North Korea last week, during which he repeated Pyongyang's claim that his former Japanese wife has died.
The South Korean official said the North plans to allow the journalists to visit the Japanese abductee's former residence in its capital, as well as what it claims is her grave.
The Asahi's correspondent said the purpose of the journalists' trip was still not clear, and that the sides would discuss it after the journalists arrive in Pyongyang.
"We believe they (the journalists) would meet with Song Il-ho, the North's top foreign ministry official on Japanese affairs, who is expected to explain the current conditions on Japan-North Korean relations," he said.
"We only suspect Kim Young-nam would meet the Japanese journalists," he added.
North Korea has allowed five of 13 Japanese citizens it kidnapped in the late 1970s and 1980s to return to Japan in 2002 following a summit between its leader Kim Jong-il and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in Pyongyang that year.
But it claims the rest have since died, and handed over to Japan what it claimed to be the remains of Yokota in late 2004.
DNA tests on the purported remains of Yokota, however, showed they belonged to someone else, the reason many Japanese believe the kidnap victim may still be alive in the communist state.
The South Korean husband of Yokota, who is also believed to have been kidnapped by the North, made his first appearance in international media last week when he was reunited with his 82-year-old mother from the South for the first time since his disappearance in 1978.
In the news conference with South Korean journalists on the sidelines of his reunion in the North's scenic resort Mount Geumgang, the 45-year-old Kim repeated Pyongyang's claim that Yokota killed herself in 1994, seven years after she gave birth to their daughter Eun-gyeong, better known as Hye-gyeong.
Kim has been counted as one of 485 South Koreans allegedly kidnapped by the communist North since the end of 1950-53 Korean War after a former North Korean agent, arrested here in June 1980, testified that he and other North Korean spies had kidnapped Kim and several other South Korean students in the late 1970s.
Kim, however, said in last week's news conference that his entry into North Korea was accidental and claimed he decided to stay there after learning that college education in the North was free.
The North has been working to normalize its ties with Japan since the 2002 summit between their leaders.
Tokyo remains firm that it cannot normalize relations with Pyongyang until the abduction issue is resolved.
"There is no change in our position to aim for normalization of diplomatic ties (with North Korea) by solving various pending issues," the Japanese prime minister said in February after five days of talks between the countries on normalization failed to make any progress.
Seoul, July 3 (Yonhap News)
Japanese journalists to visit Pyongyang this week on abduction issue: sources |
