North Korea vows to exclude Japan from nuclear talks

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
North Korea will reject Japan's continued participation in the six-party disarmament talks aimed at ending Pyongyang's nuclear programs, an official warned Saturday ahead of the latest round of negotiations in Beijing. "We will neither treat Japan as a party to the talks nor deal with it even if it impudently appears in the conference room, lost to shame," a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesperson said in comments carried by the country's official Korean Central News Agency. The move was apparently in response to Japan's refusal to provide aid to North Korea under a disarmament-for-aid pact. The comments came two days before negotiators of the six nations prepare to meet Monday in Beijing to advance the stalled talks. Japan has refused to join four other countries - South Korea, the United States, China, Russia - in providing aid to North Korea as a reward for disarmament until Pyongyang addresses the kidnapping of more than a dozen Japanese in the 1970s and '80s.