 JCP Ichida: North Korea must earnestly implement its promise on abductees The Japanese government on December 24 announced that a close scrutiny revealed that materials provided by North Korea concerning the ten "missing" Japanese abducted by North Korea did not corroborate the accounts North Korea had given to Japan. Pointing out that the existence of the North Korean "special agency" constitutes a grave obstacle to the fact finding effort, the government demands that Kim Jong-Il, chairman of North Korea's National Defense Commission, sincerely implement the promise he made to the Japanese government to fulfill his responsibility through his personal involvement. At the press conference on the same day, Japanese Communist Party Secretariat Head Ichida Tadayoshi stated that the results of the government's examination of the ten abductees again showed that North Korea's promise to reinvestigate the matter from scratch was insincere. Ichida said, "We demand that North Korea sincerely examine all the materials it will receive from Japan and take all necessary steps to restart a genuine investigation into the abduction issue." "Many of the materials and testimonies North Korea submitted to Japan were apparently filtered through the special agency. This explains why many of them are of dubious quality. The special agency's involvement has proved to be a grave obstacle to a thorough investigation into the issue, including the whereabouts of the abductees," he stated. "The need now is for the Japanese government to urge North Korea to replace its chief negotiator with a person capable of carrying out a thorough investigation into the matter, including the agency's involvement, so that the negotiation will be effective," Ichida concluded. (end) |