「拉致解決が条件」明言せず＝北のテロ支援国解除問題－米国務省

　【ワシントン１４日時事】ケーシー米国務省副報道官は１４日の記者会見で、北朝鮮による日本人拉致問題について、「米国の政策に変更はなく、日本を支持している。拉致問題をめぐる日本の懸念に対処するよう北朝鮮に繰り返し伝えている」と述べた。ただ、拉致問題の解決が北朝鮮のテロ支援国指定解除の前提条件となるかどうかに関しては明言しなかった。
　北朝鮮のテロ支援国指定解除問題では、４月２７日にワシントン郊外キャンプデービッドで行われた日米首脳会談の際、ブッシュ大統領が「拉致問題を考慮する」としたのに対し、同席したライス国務長官は「米国内法では、拉致問題解決は指定解除の前提条件にはならない」と発言していたことが明らかになっている。

時事ドットコム：「拉致解決が条件」明言せず＝北のテロ支援国解除問題－米国務省

＜拉致問題＞日本の立場支持を改めて表明 米副報道官

　【ワシントン及川正也】ケーシー米国務省副報道官は１４日の記者会見で、北朝鮮による日本人拉致問題について「米国の政策に変更はない」と述べ、拉致問題解決を目指す日本の立場を支持する考えを改めて表明した。ただ、拉致問題解決を北朝鮮のテロ支援国家指定解除の前提とするかどうかには言及しなかった。
　先の日米首脳会談ではテロ支援国家指定解除問題について、ブッシュ米大統領が「拉致問題を考慮する」と述べる一方、ライス米国務長官は「拉致問題解決は北朝鮮のテロ支援国家指定解除の前提条件にはならない」と発言し、日米間やブッシュ政権内の温度差が指摘されている。
　副報道官は「この問題で米国はずっと日本を支持している。北朝鮮には繰り返し拉致問題に関する日本の懸念に対処するよう求めている」と指摘したうえで、「（米政権内に）食い違いはない。国務長官と大統領の発言はともに米国の従来の政策と変わっていない」と述べた。
　ブッシュ大統領は１４日、安倍晋三首相に電話で拉致問題を「考慮する」との考えを重ねて表明している。

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Radio station breaks N Korea blockade

By Anna Fifield in Seoul

Published: May 11 2007 18:24 | Last updated: May 11 2007 18:24

Sitting in the basement of an unmarked building in western Seoul with his headphones on, short, smiling Kim Seong-min hardly looks like a threat to national security.

But to Kim Jong-il, North Korea’s self-styled “Dear Leader”, that is exactly what Kim Seong-min and his eight colleagues at the US-backed Free North Korea Radio represent.

Once a propaganda writer in the Korean People’s Army, Mr Kim is beaming information into the world’s most isolated country, where outside news is so tightly controlled that all radios are pre-set to the state station.

The broadcasts aggressively call for change in Pyongyang. One recent programme was titled “Kim Jong-il, demonic homicide” and called for the North Korean regime to be “ended as soon as possible”. “North Korean people, you should not let Kim Jong-il do what he wants,” it declared.

Kim Seong-min launched Free North Korea Radio three years ago with the aim of convincing North Koreans of the merits of freedom and democracy and highlighting human rights abuses there.

For one hour each night, it broadcasts lectures on democracy, defectors’ letters and poems, and religious messages.

Breaking the information blockade – as happened in eastern Europe – is the only way to bring about change in North Korea, says Andrei Lankov, a North Korea specialist at Kookmin University in Seoul who regularly discusses the fall of the Soviet bloc on Free North Korea Radio.

“North Korea is exceptionally vulnerable to information from the outside world,” Mr Lankov says. “No other country has ever had such a successful capitalist rival [in South Korea] as North Korea, and this information is explosive.”

The broadcasters have no idea how many people listen to their programmes but an estimated 5 per cent of North Korea’s 23m people now have smuggled radios or ones that can be adjusted to different frequencies.

Kim Seong-min says many refugees now in South Korea tell him they heard his broadcasts while in the North, and he himself used to listen to South Korean radio broadcasts while he was in the army. “At that time I thought there was an unknown world and my life would be empty if I died without seeing it,” he says.

The impact seems have given Pyongyang cause for concern. It has has asked the South to stop the station from broadcasting, while the Rodong Shinmun, the Workers’ party newspaper, has railed against the station.

But Mr Kim also faces opposition in the South. The government, which is trying to engage the North, is uncomfortable with the station’s aggressive message, and leftwing student groups have called for it to be shut .

The station began operations with money from defectors and local activists and now receives support from the National Endowment for Democracy, a US organisation funded by Congress.

President George W. Bush’s administration has requested sharp funding rises to promote human rights in North Korea, asking Congress for $10m (€7.4m, £5m) next year, most of which will be devoted to broadcasting. “Through means such as radio broadcasting, North Koreans can learn that they do not live in a ‘socialist paradise’,” Jay Lefkowitz, Mr Bush’s special envoy on North Korean human rights, recently told a congressional committee.

Kim Seong-min’s efforts won him an invitation to the White House last year. But the Bush administration’s new tack of trying to negotiate with Pyongyang has Mr Kim ruing that visit now.

“Kim Jong-il is like Satan, so now I think Bush a hypocrite for negotiating with him,” he says.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007

FT.com / Asia-Pacific - Radio station breaks N Korea blockade