Koizumi, Kim Hold Second Summit Talks.

(From Journal of Japanese Trade & Industry (JJTI))

Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il held summit talks for about an hour and a half at a North Korean state guesthouse in the suburbs of Pyongyang on May 22. Koizumi returned to Japan with five of the eight family members of the five repatriated Japanese abductees. During the summit talks, Kim pledged to reinvestigate "from scratch" 10 other abductees North Korea claims are dead or never entered the country, while Koizumi proposed setting up an investigation panel in which Japan will also participate.

Judging that some progress was made on the abduction issue in the talks with Kim, Koizumi promised to provide North Korea with 250,000 tons of food aid and medical supplies worth $10 million in one or two months. He said the aid will be supplied through international organizations for humanitarian purposes. The two leaders basically agreed to resume bilateral working-level talks to normalize diplomatic relations between the two countries.

The five family members of the five repatriated Japanese abductees are the 22-year-old daughter and two sons, 20 and 16, of Chimura Yasushi, 49, and his wife Fukie, 49, and the 22-year-old daughter and son, 19, of Hasuike Kaoru, 46 and his wife Yukiko, 48. The five children arrived at Tokyo's Haneda airport on the night of May 22 on board a government plane ...