拉致早期解決を願う会イン熊野 / 新宮市
北朝鮮に拉致された日本人の救出と拉致問題の早期解決を訴える集会が今日、新宮市民会館で開かれました。 これは新宮市周辺の有志で作る拉致被害者家族を支援する会新宮が開いたものです。
集会では主催者を代表して立岡實代表が「拉致されたのがもし自分の子や孫だと思うと嘆かわしく、絶対にこの問題を風化させないよう声を大にしなくてはなりません」と挨拶しました。 そして「北朝鮮に拉致された日本人を救出するための全国協議会」の佐藤勝巳会長が講演し、「日本独自の経済制裁が時間が経つにつれ北朝鮮政権を追い込んでいる。 拉致問題の解決は難しいことではないと考えている」と述べました。 また北朝鮮に拉致された有本恵子さんの両親、有本明弘さんと喜代子さん夫妻も演壇に立ち、恵子さんが拉致されてから現在までの経過を述べたほか、「日本人の拉致被害者が帰るまで頑張ろうと思う」と決意を新たにしていました。 会場ではこのほか、主催者の立岡代表が作詞し、拉致被害者家族の心情を歌った「母の祈り」が披露されました。
テレビ和歌山 ニュース
「安倍内閣で拉致解決」 中山補佐官 地村さんらと面談
拉致問題担当の中山恭子首相補佐官は２３日、非公式に小浜市役所を訪れ、地村保志さん夫妻や特定失踪（しっそう）者の家族らと面談し「安倍内閣の任期中に拉致問題が解決するよう強く努力していく」と述べた。
面談は２回に分け行われた。地村さん夫妻、村上利夫市長、千田千代和若狭町長、救う会福井の池田欣一会長らとの面談で、中山補佐官は「５人の拉致被害者の帰国から５年を迎える今年は１つの節目」と話し、「拉致解決へ強い決意を持つ安倍首相の任期中に、すべての拉致被害者が生還できるよう努力する」と強調したという。
また、中山補佐官は、地村さんの３人の子供たちの近況について、それぞれが職場や大学などで落ち着いた暮らしを送っていることを聞くと安心した様子だったらしい。
中山補佐官はこの後、敦賀市、若狭町、小浜市の特定失踪者３人の家族らと面談した。失踪者の１人、小浜市田烏の山下春夫さん＝当時（２８）＝の兄の寛久さん（８６）は、埼玉県の渡辺秀子さんの子供２人が１９７４年６月に小浜市岡津から拉致された事件について言及。「春夫が行方不明になったのはその２カ月後。関連も十分考えられる」と、積極的な調査を求める要望書を手渡すと「検討します」と受け取ったという。
福井新聞 - 福井のニュース
North Korea: Did anyone say 'enriched uranium'?
By Donald Kirk
JEJU, South Korea –Mystery hung over US envoy Christopher Hill's overnight foray to Pyongyang, even as he let it be known that his talks with his North Korean counterpart, Kim Kye-gwan, were "very detailed" and "substantive".
The questions as Hill discussed the meetings after getting to Seoul on Friday were about the nature of the details - and how substantive did they get.
If Hill raised the ticklish issue of North Korea's highly enriched uranium (HEU) program in any detail, he was not letting on. And if he came up with a proposal for the US simply to buy up North Korea's nuclear inventory, as widely reported in South Korea, he was not about to confirm or deny anything to that effect.
Hill did, however, appear anxious to convey the impression of having talked about highly enriched uranium without actually using the term. It was, after all, the HEU issue that torpedoed the Geneva agreement of 1994 when his predecessor, James Kelly, alleged after visiting Pyongyang nearly five years ago that a top North Korean had indeed acknowledged the existence of a secret HEU program.
"We did discuss the need to have a comprehensive list of all nuclear programs," said Hill. For good measure, he added, "And, of course, all means all."
It was North Korea's supposed acknowledgement to Kelly of the HEU program that set off the chain reaction that resulted in North Korea expelling inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) at the end of 2002.
The IAEA inspectors had been posted at the North Korean complex at Yongbyon, under terms of the 1994 agreement, making sure the padlock was firmly fixed on the five-megawatt nuclear reactor that North Korea had been using before 1994 to produce one or two warheads with plutonium at their core. North Korea soon after their departure said it had resumed making plutonium while steadfastly denying anything to do with highly enriched uranium.
In a sense, Hill's flight to Pyongyang - the first visit there by a senior US official since Kelly's disastrous sortie in October 2002 - appeared as an effort to make amends. If Kelly and his entourage had returned to Seoul in a mood of impending crisis, Hill came out of Pyongyang with an air of having made amends for the unpleasantness of the past.
It was as though he and Kim Kye-gwan were in sync on just about everything, at least to judge from his remark that "both of us confirmed the commitment" to the six-nation agreement of February 13 outlining a series of steps for North Korea's complete dismantlement of its nuclear program.
They had discussed, said Hill, the "momentum and dynamism that will take us to the end game" of the whole difficult process and the need for renewal of the six-party talks to get things going again after what Hill said had been "a bump in the road". Moreover, said Hill, he had paid a courtesy call on Pak Ui-chun, North Korea's new foreign minister, on a schedule arranged solely by Kim, and they had talked about ministerial-level talks that might involve a meeting between Pak and Hill's boss, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
The "bump" was the protracted refusal of North Korea to invite in IAEA inspectors again and shut down that five-megawatt facility as agreed on February 13. North Korea was to have done so within 60 days but balked as long as it was unable to withdraw US$25 million from Banco Delta Asia in Macau, blacklisted by the Treasury Department for serving as a conduit for counterfeit $100 bills printed on a Swiss press in Pyongyang.
Having worked out the complex arrangement under which the money was finally transferred to the Russian central bank through the Federal Reserve Bank in New York after no other bank anywhere would touch the stuff, Hill left no doubt that North Korea would now abide by the deal.
"The DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea ] indicated they're prepared promptly to shut down the Yongbyon facility," he said, and they're also "prepared to disable the Yongbyon facility", meaning the place will quite soon be relegated into the history of crisis on the Korean Peninsula.
But when? That was a question that Hill was not going to answer as he stood beside his host, South Korea's nuclear envoy, Chun Yung-woo. Nor did Chun have any response - other than to say his government would provide 60,000 tons of heavy fuel oil simultaneously with the shutdown of the Yongbyon facility and 950,000 tons whenever North Korea did away with the whole program.
Whatever else happened, said Chun, he could not envision any scenario whereby "the agreement would fail to be implemented" because the five other parties (South Korea, China, Russia, the US and Japan) "failed to provide assistance" to the North, the sixth signatory.
Just when the IAEA team will go to Pyongyang, though, is still not certain after the North Korean Embassy in Vienna said the trip had had to be postponed while North Korea still waited to receive the $25 million. The money apparently lingered in the Russian central bank, a glitch that South Korean officials preferred to view as a mere technicality.
The mood in Jeju at a lavish government-sponsored "peace forum" was irrepressibly optimistic as Hill was visiting Pyongyang. President Roh Moo-hyun, opening the forum, said confidently the initial steps of the February 13 agreement "are now being implemented" and "six-party talks are also likely to resume soon".
His remarks showed his anger over what had been the confrontational policy of the US during President George W Bush's first term.
"At that time, even talk of a possible military strike by the United States percolated," said Roh, and fears rose again last July and October when North Korea "first test-fired missiles and then conducted as nuclear test". Now, he said, "The North Korean nuclear issue is moving onto the path to peaceful resolution."
Hill, however, warned that the saga was far from finished. "Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula will be a very difficult process," he cautioned. Yes, he was "buoyed by the sense we are able to achieve our full objective of complete denuclearization" but also "burdened by the sense we will have to go to a great deal of effort".
Foreign Minister Song Min-soon, hosting a gala luncheon before flying to Seoul to meet Hill, hinted at the difficulties. "We cannot concede or compromise over the task of ensuring that North Korea gives up all nuclear weapons and other programs," he said. "It is imperative that this goal must be achieved."
Like Hill, Song did not want to get into just what those weapons and programs were - the dirty words, "highly enriched uranium", as if by common agreement, remained unspoken.
Journalist Donald Kirk has been covering Korea - and the confrontation of forces in Northeast Asia - for more than 30 years.
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Asia Times Online :: Korea News - One truth North Korea won't hear