Pyongyang hopeful of Hatoyama

PYONGYANG (Kyodo) Japan and North Korea need a new accord to improve bilateral relations and Pyongyang is ready to hold talks with the incoming administration of Yukio Hatoyama, a senior North Korean official said Friday.

Song Il Ho, ambassador for normalization talks with Japan, said in an interview in Pyongyang that an agreement the two countries struck in August last year in Shenyang, China, has become "invalid" due to departing Prime Minister Taro Aso's "hostile" policy toward the North.

"Under a Democratic Party of Japan-led administration, we need to get a fresh start (in bilateral talks for a new agreement) based on the spirit of the Pyongyang Declaration," Song said, referring to a 2002 accord committing the two countries to work toward normalizing relations.

A new tripartite coalition government will be launched after Hatoyama, leader of the DPJ, is voted in as prime minister at a special session of the Diet on Wednesday. Aso's long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party suffered a crushing defeat in the Aug. 30 election.

"The Aso administration invalidated the (Shenyang) agreement," Song said, criticizing the LDP government for prioritizing the issue of North Korea's abductions of Japanese citizens, despite Pyongyang's position that the issue had been resolved.

Under the Shenyang accord, North Korea was to reinvestigate the abductions as swiftly as possible and try to complete the probe by last fall, while Japan was to ease sanctions once the reinvestigation had begun. It didn't.

"If a DPJ-led administration follows the LDP's hostile policy toward (North) Korea, we don't expect to see any changes in (North) Korea-Japan relations," Song said.

"But if (Hatoyama) takes a step to seriously improve relations, including the settlement of the past, we will move accordingly and appropriately," he said.

Song said the main point of the Pyongyang Declaration — signed in 2002 in Pyongyang by North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and then Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi — is for Japan to settle issues stemming from its 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.

Asked what Tokyo should do to compensate for the period of colonial rule, Song said, "Japan must find out its own task by itself and do it" because it is aware of crimes it committed against the Korean people.

The envoy said North Korea "took note of" Hatoyama's stance that he will not visit the war-linked Yasukuni Shrine and that his administration will focus on developing closer ties with other parts of Asia, including North Korea.

Song said the North will never return to the six-party talks on denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula, suggesting Pyongyang would seek bilateral talks with the United States to address the atomic standoff.

"The six-party talks are dead," he said. "The reason behind tension in the Korean Peninsula is the U.S. nuclear policy toward (North) Korea."