U.S. envoy vows to help resolve North's abductions

WASHINGTON (Kyodo) The nominee for U.S. special envoy for North Korea human rights issues pledged Thursday to "actively" assist Japan's efforts to resolve the issue of Pyongyang's kidnappings of Japanese decades ago.

"The United States continues to be concerned about Japan's abducted citizens," as well as South Korean prisoners of war and abductees, Robert King said in prepared remarks during his confirmation hearing.

"If confirmed, I will participate actively in diplomatic efforts to support our partners in the resolution of these issues," he said. During the question and answer session, he called North Korea's abductions of Japanese citizens "one of the most egregious" human rights violations.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il apologized for Pyongyang's 1970s and '80s abductions of Japanese nationals during his September 2002 Pyongyang summit with then Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who managed two bring home five abductees. The North claims they were the only survivors.

Japan, the apology notwithstanding, wants North Korea to provide further information about the victims, believing some are still alive. The row has foreclosed on any chance at normalizing relations.

King has long been a congressional staffer, including an aide to former House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Lantos. If confirmed, he will cooperate with other senior U.S. officials dealing with North Korea, including Special Representative for North Korean Policy Stephen Bosworth, in trying to improve the hermit state's human rights situation.

In his prepared remarks, King said North Korea is "one of the worst abusers of human rights in the world" and the U.S. needs to "seek to make progress where we are able at a pace that is sustainable."

Specifically, he said he will expand the U.S. effort to broadcast into North Korea to break the isolation of the North Korean people and make independent sources of information available inside the country.

King said he will seek effective ways to assist North Korean refugees through such measures as pressing Beijing not to expel or forcibly return those who flee into China.

Also Thursday, Wi Sung Lac, South Korea's chief delegate to the six-party talks on denuclearizing North Korea, met in Washington with Bosworth, the U.S. point man on the North, and Sung Kim, U.S. special envoy for the six-way negotiations.

Wi, Seoul's special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs, was briefed on Sung's recent informal meeting in New York with Ri Gun, director general of the North American Affairs Bureau of the North Korean Foreign Ministry.

Wi will meet with Akitaka Saiki, Japan's chief delegate to the six-party talks and director general of the Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, in Tokyo next Monday, to discuss what approach to take over Pyongyang's nuclear threat.

North Korea agreed in September 2005 to scrap its nuclear arms program in an aid-for-denuclearization deal struck at the six-way talks involving the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia.

But North Korea withdrew from the six-way talks in April to protest the U.N. Security Council's condemnation of its rocket launch, which was widely regarded as a long-range missile test. Pyongyang then cranked up the tension by detonating a nuclear device for the second time in May.