YONHAP NEWS

(LEAD) Hwang rejects Japan's invitation for Tokyo trip: source

By Lee Chi-dong
SEOUL, Oct. 23 (Yonhap) -- Hwang Jang-yop, a former top-level North Korean official who defected to South Korea in 1997, has turned down Japan's invitation to visit Tokyo next week for a speech on North Korea at Japan's parliament, the Diet, an informed diplomatic source here said Friday.

   Hiroshi Nakai, the Japanese minister in charge of abduction issues, flew into Seoul on Thursday night for a meeting with Hwang, who is under the protection of South Korea's state intelligence authorities.

   But Hwang refused to meet the Japanese official, according to the source who requested anonymity.

   "Hwang appears to think that it is still early to make a trip to Japan, concerned about the possibility that it will be used for political purposes," the source said.

   Hwang is the highest-ranking defector from North Korea, having served as chairman of the Supreme People's Assembly and secretary of the powerful Workers' Party.

   Since his defection in 1997, Hwang has been openly criticizing the North Korean regime's oppression of its 24 million people.

   The Japanese government apparently believes Hwang's public comments on Pyongyang's past abduction of Japanese nationals will help put pressure on the communist nation and bolster solidarity among Japanese people on the abduction issue, one of the biggest political and diplomatic topics in Japan.

   Japan says at least 16 Japanese citizens were kidnapped by North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s. In 2002, the North admitted to having kidnapped 13 Japanese people and allowed five of them to return home. It said the other eight had already died.

   Tokyo, still trying to confirm the fate of the other abductees, said it would not seek to improve relations with Pyongyang without a resolution to the issue.

   Hwang, now 86, said earlier that he would visit Japan if it could help the Japanese people and contribute to a closer alliance between Seoul and Tokyo.

   The previous liberal South Korean government of Roh Moo-hyun would not permit Hwang's travel to Japan in a bid not to antagonize the North.

   The conservative Lee Myung-bak administration, which is increasing efforts for better relations with Tokyo, however, said the decision is up to Hwang himself.

   The source gave no clearer explanation on why Hwang is taking a cautious stance toward Japan's request.

   Meanwhile, diplomatic sources said Japan is also seeking to invite Kim Hyun-hui, a former North Korean spy who confessed to a mid-air bombing of a South Korean jet in 1987.

   Japan expects Kim to help confirm the fate of Yaeko Taguchi, a Japanese woman abducted by North Korean agents in 1978 to train spies. Kim said that she had lived with Taguchi for more than a year in the early 1980s to learn Japanese language and culture. North Korea says Taguchi died in 1986 in a traffic accident, but the Japanese government is unconvinced and has demanded proof.

   Kim met Taguchi's son and brother in South Korea in March in front of reporters and television cameras.

   lcd@yna.co.kr
(END)