Japan plans to raise the abduction of its citizens by North Korea at six-way talks to be held late this month in Beijing on the crisis over Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions, a Japanese official said Monday. But the official said the issue of the abductions, which took place decades ago but have dogged relations between Japan and the reclusive communist state, would be resolved bilaterally. “This is an important issue so this will be raised,” the official quoted Japanese chief cabinet secretary Yasuo Fukuda as saying at the end of a three-day visit to Beijing. North Korea has admitted kidnapping 13 Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s to help train spies, saying eight of them subsequently died. It has apologized for the kidnappings and the survivors have returned to Japan, but the fate of the abductees’ offspring has frayed bilateral ties. Full Story
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