Cheney asked Abe to define resolution of abduction issue

U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney asked Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during his visit to Japan in February to define the conditions under which Japan would consider the North Korea abduction issue resolved, diplomatic sources said Saturday.

Other senior U.S. officials who visited Japan around the same time posed similar questions, suggesting Washington is considering how to position the abduction issue in the process of resolving the North Korean nuclear standoff.

As a result, Tokyo may be forced to indicate what it specifically wants to see in terms of resolving the matter.

Japan maintains it will not offer any aid to North Korea unless progress is made in resolving the abduction issue, although it and the five other nations in the six-party talks struck a deal Feb. 13 to provide energy aid to Pyongyang in return for the North taking initial denuclearization steps.

Cheney asked Abe in their talks in Tokyo on Feb. 21 what the "definition of a resolution" was, but the prime minister stopped short of giving a specific explanation, saying only that Japan will decide what constitutes a resolution, the sources said.

Abe also said that the problem lies in the fact that North Korea has not shown a positive attitude on the matter and that it must retract its assertion that the abduction issue has been resolved and take specific measures, such as conducting another investigation into surviving Japanese abductees, the sources said.

Calls from Washington for specifics involving Japan's wish to resolve the abduction issue are mounting, with a former member of the Bush administration with pro-Japan sentiments saying Tokyo can remain vague for only so long.

A senior Japanese official said the Bush administration, with less than two years remaining, may be trying to take a realistic approach toward North Korea, seeking to settle for a "small package" centering on the dismantlement of the North's Yongbyon nuclear facility.

Under the Feb. 13 six-party agreement, North Korea agreed to shut down and seal its Yongbyon facility and allow International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors back into the country by Saturday in exchange for energy aid.