North Korea rejects Japan's participation in nuclear talks

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North Korea rejects Japan's participation in nuclear talks

ASSOCIATED PRESS

SEOUL, South Korea, Nov. 29 — North Korea said Saturday it will not allow Japan to join multilateral talks over its nuclear weapons program if Tokyo insists on discussing the abduction of its citizens by the communist state.

The North's rejection could snarl ongoing efforts to restart six-nation nuclear talks, possible next month. The United States, China, Russia, Japan and the two Koreas held the first such talks in Beijing in August.

''If Japan, piggybacking the United States, continues to try to raise the abduction issue at the six-nation talks, we can never be condone its participation,'' the North's state-run KCNA news agency said.

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The Japanese public was outraged when North Korea Korean leader Kim Jong Il admitted during a summit with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in September 2002 that his nation's agents had systematically kidnapped Japanese decades ago. They were reportedly forced to teach the Japanese language and culture to North Korean intelligence officers.

North Korea has allowed the return of five kidnapped Japanese. But the abductees' children — and a suspected deserter from the U.S. Army who is married to one the five — remain in the communist nation.

more: http://famulus.msnbc.com/FamulusIntl/ap11-29-045637.asp?reg=PACRIM