North Korea Wants Japan Out of Future Talks

[mumon]

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/08/international/asia/08NUKE.html?ex=1066190400&en=131585f4ec6d57d0&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE

SEOUL, Oct. 7 — North Korea said on Tuesday it would not "tolerate" Japanese participation in future talks about its nuclear weapons ambitions.

The comments — coming shortly after a meeting about North Korea held in Indonesia of representatives of China, Japan and South Korea — were the latest in a series of confrontational statements from North Korea, widely viewed as a strategy to gain concessions from Washington if more talks are held. Last week, the North Korean government said it was making atomic bombs from plutonium it had reprocessed from 8,000 spent fuel rods. ...


On Tuesday, North Korea said Japan had "selfish objectives." The North has admitted to abducting 12 Japanese citizens during the 1970's and the 1980's to serve as language instructors to its agents, but Japan suspects that many more were kidnapped. Some officials involved in the international meeting said that both before and after the Beijing talks North Korea had expressed displeasure with Tokyo for raising the abduction issue.



The world is still going to hell in a handbasket.